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IMMOBTALITY. 



SARGENT. 



It shall assuredly come, that day of a new, an immortal evangel.- 
Lessing, 



The advent of Spiritualism is through facts and not theories. Its pur- 
pose is positive knowledge.— Hudson Turtle, 



Spiritualism is an experimental science, and affords the only sure foun- 
dation for a true philosophy and a pure religion.— A If red R. Wallace, 



Even in the most cloudless skies of Skepticism I see a rain-cloud if it be 
no bigger than a man's hand: it is Modern Spiritualism.— Lord Brougham, 



In the whole universe all is contingent, nothing is necessary, nothing a 
cause of itself. To explain the cause of all, therefore, we must admit a 
cause which may be necessarily a cause of itself and of all things. This 
cause being, since it is necessary, it follows that God is, for it is God.— 
Leibnitz, 

The soul of man can know the Divine only so far as it knows itself.— 
Marcus Antoninus. 




PORTRAIT OF THE SPIRIT "KATIE KING. 

Copitd/rom a Photograph taken by tht Magnesium Light. 



THE 



PROOF PALPABLE 

OP 

IMMOETALITY; 



AN ACCOUNT OF THE MATERIALIZATION PHENOMENA 
OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 



REMARKS ON THE RELATIONS OF THE FACTS 
TO THEOLOGY, MORALS, AND RELIGION. 



BY 

EPES SARGENT, 

AUTHOR OP " PLANCHETTE, OB THE DESPAIR OF SCIENCE ; A HISTORY OP THE 
FACTS AND THEORIES OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM." 



11 Nullu8 in microcosmo spiritus, nullus in macrocosmo Deus." 



THIRD EDITION. 

BOSTON : 
COLBY AND RICH, 

9 Montgomery Place. 
1881. 






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xiU-AAT-M-6, 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



To the uninformed many the narrative portions of this volume 
will seem like the fantasies of a mediaeval superstition. But the faith- 
ful observer of what is going on in the world must he well aware that 
the accumulation of facts corresponding with those here presented 
is getting to be irresistible. For their refutation something more 
than a word or gesture of contempt is now required. Those critics 
who hcpe to dispose of them thus easily will soon be counted in the 
long procession of infatuated opponents of dawning truths. The 
phenomena are fast spreading and becoming better known ; they 
attract new converts daily, and are beginning to be admitted by re- 
spectable scientific authorities, such as Wallace and Crookes in Eng- 
land, Perty in Berne, and Wagner and Butlerof in Eussia. All the 
frauds of real or pretended mediums are powerless to neutralize the 
effect of what has been proved, and has now taken its place among 
the certainties of science. Moreover, the question is beginning to be 
raised whether much that we have set down as the conscious impos- 
ture of certain known mediums may not be the work of foreign forces, 
the eccentric operation'of which we do not yet understand. 

But in the revision of this work I have been careful to note all those 
instances in winch testimony has been weakened or withdrawn since 
the first edition was printed. Thus I have stricken out the accounts 
which Mr. K. D. Owen gave of phenomena through Mr. and Mrs. 
Holmes, though he has since admitted that in this case genuine mani- 
festations were probably mixed up with those he suspected as ques- 
tionable. I have also made such qualifications as seemed pertinent 
in other cases. Spiritualism needs no invalidated supports. 

The fact that the present volume grew out of a series of familiar 
communications respecting the materialization phenomena, will ex- 
plain, if it will not excuse, the somewhat free and desultory manner 



iv PREFACE. 

in which the many-sided subject has been treated. If my transitions 
from fact to theory should seem irregular, the iault lies in the original 
unambitious form of the publication. 

I have brought down the record of phenomena to the beginning of 
the year 1876 ; and it will be interesting to the student of them to re- 
mark how what seemed incredible at one time, even to advanced Spir- 
itualists, has been confirmed as the manifestations have gone on and 
multiplied ; and how every new " exposure " has resulted in a reaction 
favorable to the confirmation of the fact involved. The course of 
truth, Goethe tells us, is spiral, and progress cannot be had without 
occasional retrogression. 

That Spiritualism now offers the grounds for a science founded on 
observed facts is the belief of all persistent investigators. It has made 
its way in spite of the most vehement opposition that ever a great 
truth encountered. The large majority of the cultivated classes, the 
religious and the scientific, have all combined to hoot it down, almost 
blind to the consideration whether it is a thing of facts or chimeras ; 
for there is much in it that to a superficial observer is repulsive. But 
it still lives and grows. If true, it is God's truth, and we must not 
fear it, however portentous to our short-sightedness it may appear. 
It is time for people of common sense to accommodate their opinions 
to the facts, since it is evident that the facts will not accommodate 
themselves to the preconceptions and dislikes of any majority, how- 
ever wise and worthy. E. S. 

l?o. 68 Mor eland street, Boston, Feb. 1st, 1876. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
Materializations of the Past 9-21 

The recent developments— Sensitives or Mediums— Mr. Wallace on 
Spirit-seeing— Sensations of a Medium— T. H. Noyes's testimo- 
ny—Tangible apparitions— The Hydesville phenomena— The Da- 
venports— J. Koons— D. D. Home- Kate Fox and the Liver- 
more Manifestations— She marries Mr. Jencken— Their Infant 
son a medium— Mr. Livermore's Experiences— Spirit forms, 
drapery, flowers, etc. 

CHAPTER II. 
Phenomenal Proofs of Immortality 21-32 

Nature of spirit materializations— Chavee's three Questions- 
Theory of the spirit-body strictly scientific— The Superior Or- 
ganism— Christ's resurrection not a type of ours— Clairvoyance 
proves the spirit- body— Kant on the Moral Element— Mr. Emer- 
son answered— G-enesis of the belief in immortality— Phenome- 
nal Proofs— Skepticism in high quarters— Socrates a medium— 
His death— A Female Socrates. 

CHAPTER III. 
Materializations at Moravia, N. Y., and Else- 
where 32-41 

Mr. Hazard ■ s Eleven Days in Moravia— Materializations foretold— 
Efforts to manifest— Mrs. Hazard appears— Mr. L. A. Bigelow's 
testimony— Mr. Isaac Kelso's— A spirit speech— Suspicions of . 
fraud dissipated— Mrs. Packard's testimony— Dr. A. S. Hay- 
ward's— Medium ship of Dr. Slade— Testimony of Mrs. A. A. 
Andrews— Of Mr. Clarke Irvine— Mrs. Hollis's Mediumship— 
Dr. N. B. Wolfe's testimony— Mr. D. H. Hale's— Mr. F. B. 
Plimpton's— Katie King in Philadelphia— Dr. H. T. Child and 
Mr. Owen— Question of Identity— John King— Reflections. 

CHAPTER IY. 
Materializations in England 41-67 

Experiments in London— Mrs. Guppy— Messrs. Heme and Wil- 
liams—The phenomena through Miss Cook— The spirits John 



vi TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

and Katie King— Portrait of John King— Mr. Williams's medi- 
umship— Miss Cook and Mr. Heme— Remarkable incident— Let- 
ter from Miss Cook— Katie's efforts to materialize— Mr. W. H. 
Harrison's testimony— Katie and her medium— Spirit drapery- 
Mr. Blyton's testimony— Mr. Charles Blackburn— Katie walks 
forth— Letter from Dr. Gully— Mr. Coleman's testimony- 
Prince Emile's— Dr. G-eorge Sexton's— Dr. Gully's— Seizure of 
the spirit- form— Mr. Dunphy's statement— Mr. Tapp's testi- 
mony. 

CHAPTER V. 
Scientific Investigations 67-72 

Mr. Crookes investigates the materialization phenomena— His let- 
ter— His apparatus— The Dialectical Society— Their conclusions 
—The facts scientifically tested— Theory of Psychic Force— Dr. 
Rogers— Serjeant Cox— Unconscious cerebration— Insufficiency 
of the theory— Remarkable incident— Mr. H. E. Russell's testi- 
mony—Definition of Substance. 

CHAPTER VI. 
Spirit and Matter 72-85 

Are there two substances— Immateriality— Soul and Spirit— Im- 
mortality in the Bible— Ancient belief in Spirits— The Christian 
Fathers— Primary conception of spirit— Augustine— Descartes- 
Spinoza an anti-Spiritualist— His con "rove rsy with a Spiritual- 
ist— His system— His notion of immortality— Idealism and Real- 
ism—Proofs of spirit power over matter— Astonishing facts- 
Spirit writing— Levitation— Music— Photography— Letter car- 
ried by Spirits— S. C. Hall's testimony— Mr. W. H. Harrison's 
—Space to Spirits— Swedenborg's teachings— Herbert Spencer- 
Man's limitations. 

CHAPTER VII. 
Priority of Spirit 85-94 

how far the senses teach us— Two entities or one— Man a trinity- 
Testimony of seers— Skeptical exclusion of causation— Spiritual- 
ism extends the realm— On photographing spirit-forms— Papil- 
lon on Matter— Hegelian doctrine of nature— Mr. Lewes" s objec- 
tions answered— Ferrier's abuse of Spiritualists— What is meant 
by spirit— First Causes— The Deific Nature. 

CHAPTER VIII. 
More of the Phenomena through Miss Cook . 94-110 

Mr. W. H. Harrison on Miss Cook's mediumship— Her own ac- 
count— An unspiritual spirit— Anecdotes by Mr. Dunphy— Miss 
Kislingbury's testimony— Sittings for a photograph of the spirit 
Katie— Mr. Harrison's testimony— Mr. Luxmoore's— Messrs. 
Varley, Crookes and the electrical test— The crowning proof- 
Mr. Crookes' s testimony— Katie's spirit drapery— Cut places 
made whole— Farewell seance— Mrs. Ross-Church's account of 
it— Photographs by Mr. Crookes— His conclusive experiments. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. vii 

CHAPTER IX. 
American Phenomena 110-123 

"What is meant by immortality— Phenomenon and Cause— The 
Philadelphia Katie King— She disappears and reappears— Mr. 
A. B. Crosby's testimony— Dr. C. Pane's— E. D. Owen's— 
The proof palpable— The two Katie Kings— Credulity of Skepti- 
cism—A question— Anecdote by Mrs. A. A. Andrews— Clair- 
voyant Predictions— Mr. Irvine's testimony— Rev. S. Watson's 
— Rev. R. S. Pope's— Reflections. 

CHAPTER X. 
Materializations through the Eddy Family . 123*135 

Facts for induction— Tyndall and the Cambridge professors on 
Spiritualism— The Eddy mediums— Col. Oicott's statement- 
Amazing phenomena— Troops of materialized spirits— A. J. 
Davis on the phenomena— On Spirit and Matter. 

CHAPTER XL 
The Spirit-body 135-154 

Reliability of seers— Swedenborg— James E. Smith on individual 
revelations— All imperfect— A glorious truth— Kardec on spirit 
teachings— The spirit-body— Universal testimony— Chaseray— 
Cabanis— Coleridge— Dr. Georget— Scriptural pneumatology— 
Resurrection of the body— The true body— The lower animals- 
Sir J. E. Smith— Charles Bonnet— A future for all— W. M. Wil- 
kinson— Melancthon— Luther— Calvin— Proofs of direct action 
of Spirits— A nervous ether— A wonderful world of spirit— Kar- 
dec and Bacon on the spirit-body— Plutarch on mediumship— 
The creation out of nothing— Materializations of clothing, orna- 
ments, etc.— The spirit-body not a mere hypothesis. 

CHAPTER XII. 
Power of Spirit over Matter 154-160 

Origin of force— Vera on force— The Darwinian theory— Moleschott 
on thought— Tyndall's speculations— Coleridge and Schelling— 
Priestley— Paul Janet— Can matter evolve mind— Atheism con- 
trary to science— Tyndall's slur at Spiritualism. 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Unity of Forces and Phenomena 160-167 

The search for unity— Aryan monotheism— Chemistry tends to 
unity— Reduction of living forms to unity— Principle of life- 
Suns and planets not dead mechanisms— Identity of life and 
spirit— Protestant and Catholic concurrence— Double conscious- 
ness—The All in All. 



viii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Relations of Spiritualism to Belief in God . 167-187 

Atheistic spirits and seers— The finite and infinite— Descartes— 
Emile Saisset— Mill, Spencer and Lewes on theism— The Expe- 
rience Philosophy— Personal incident— Biichner denies clairvoy- 
ance— Spiritualism a science— Picton— Christlieb— The supreme 
question— Materialism explains nothing— Spiritualism not athe- 
istic—Rev. John Caird— Dogmatic materialism answered— On 
design in Nature- Divine personality— Hartmann— Schopen- 
hauer— Picton— Bacon. 

CHAPTER XV. 
The Divine Nature triune 187-138 

Pantheism— Spiritualism enlarges our views of God— Union of Pan- 
theism and Theism— John Scotus Erigena— Bruno— Wm. Law— 
Rev. John Hunt— God personal— Huxley admits double con- 
sciousness— Mozart" s case— Inferences— Three in One— Man has 
a divine prototype — Naturalism and Theism — Swedenborg— 
Christlieb— Hegel— Schelling— Vera— God self- limited in Nature 
—The divine and human trinity— Hooker— Hamilton— Cousin. 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Relations of Spiritualism to Morality . . 198-209 

Direct bearings of Spiritualism on a science of natural morality- 
Wallace's testimony— Spiritualism eclectic— Religion and ethics 
—Conventional morality— Socrates on Evil— Nature of the moral 
law— Baxter— Personal experience in mesmerism— Townshend 
— Origen— St. Thomas— Spinoza— Sin punishes itself— Materiali- 
zation— The triune principle— Atheistic begging of the question 
—A moral creed— Teachings of Spiritualism. 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Message of Spiritualism 209-220 

Old revelations made new— Notions of a future life— Humboldt- 
Newman— Kant— Strauss— Leon Case— Indifference to life- 
Thomas Buckle— Laboulaye— Auerbach— St. George Stock- 
Personal Experiences— The Mesmerists— Kerner— Objections to 
Spiritualism — The Satanic theory— Locke's advice — Gulden- 
stubbe— James Martineau— Dr. Carpenter answered— Rev. Mr. 
Voysey's objections— Sentiment must yield to facts. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Further Proofs Palpable 220-234 

Spirit photographs and materializations— M. A. (Oxon.)— Mumler 
— Gurney— Crowell— Olcott— Lenzberg — Blavatsky— Leon Case 
—Mrs. A. A. Andrews— The facts and the inferences— Conclud- 
ing reflections. 



THE 



PROOF PALPABLE OF IMMORTALITY. 



CHAPTER P. 

The surprising character of the developments which the 
phenomena of Modern Spiritualism have recently attained to 
seems to call for a clear, succinct review of the whole subject 
of similar contemporary manifestations. The concurrent 
testimony of well-known scientists and of unprofessional in- 
vestigators, so numerous that to attempt to set aside their at- 
testations as inadmissible is simply irrational, is now in the 
keeping of science. It is of a nature so astonishing, so truly 
wonderful, that I can hardly blame the incredulity that still 
assails the reported facts with ridicule and denial in the face 
even of all the confirmations by which they are established. 

As introductory to an account of the extraordinary mani- 
festations through Miss Florence Eliza Cook, now Mrs. Cor- 
ner, of London, in which manifestations, as proved by Pro- 
fessor Crookes, Dr. J. M. Gully, Mr. C. F. Yarley, Mr. Benja- 
min Coleman, and many others, a spirit form, temporarily 
materialized, and undistinguishable from a human being in 
the flesh, has come forth in the light, conversed, and submitted 
to the most convincing tests, and then disappeared, leaving no 
visible trace, I will give a brief account of the manifestations 
that have preceded or accompanied this crowning wonder. 

In all ages of the world and among all nations, it has been 
claimed that there have been men and women with certain 
(9) 



10 SENSITIVES OE MEDIUMS. 

supersensual faculties ; faculties exceptionally or abnormally 
developed, and by the exercise of which they have become 
clairvoyant, clairaudient, and able to receive impressions not 
known to the generality of mankind. All times and all tribes 
have had their prophets, seers, sensitives, psychics, or medi- 
ums. The inference is that these same powers are possessed 
in different degrees by all human beings, but that it is only 
under certain conditions of organization, temperament, or in- 
fluence, that they are developed as we find them to be in par- 
ticular instances. 

The ready objection of skepticism is : " I will not believe that 
another man possesses such extraordinary powers while I can 
discover no sign of them in myself. I am the measure of all 
other human beings ; and when you tell me that such persons 
as Abraham, Balaam, Hagar, Paul, Peter, Swedenborg, Home, 
Foster, Mrs. Fox-Jencken, Mrs. Andrews, Miss Cook, Miss 
Showers and others, can see spirits, manifest clairvoyance, 
and fall into trances, I will not believe it." 

But consider to what inconsistencies assumptions like this 
would lead us ! One man is utterly destitute of the musical 
faculty ; he cannot tell one tune from another ; and yet here 
is a little child, Wolfgang Mozart, who at five years of age 
shows a musical genius, power of execution, originality and 
taste, which can be characterized only as inexplicable and 
amazing. And again : Here is a man of average intelligence 
who is slow at figures, and finds it hard to perform an ordi- 
nary sum in addition or multiplication ; and here is a boy or 
an idiot, who will in a few seconds, by a mental computation, 
solve a sum in arithmetic which a skillful accountant, with 
the aid of his slate, could hardly verify in half an hour. The 
cases of Zerah Colburn, Professor Safford, and others, prov- 
ing this statement, are known to all inquirers into the abnor- 
mal powers of the human mind. These instances would seem 
to show by analogy that there may be also a faculty of spirit- 
ual vision and clairvoyance, which may be undeveloped in one 
person and manifested in another. 

Mr. Alfred E. Wallace, in his recent " Defence of Spiritual- 



SENSATIONS OF A MEDIUM. 11 

ism," has accurately stated the fact, of which ample proofs 
may be given, that different individuals possess the power of 
seeing spirit forms and figures in very variable degrees. 

11 Thus it often happens at a seance," he says, " that some 
will see distinct lights of which they will describe the form, 
appearance and position, while others see nothing at all. If 
only one or two persons see the lights, the rest will naturally 
impute it to their imagination ; but there are cases in which 
only one or two of those present are unable to see them. 
There are also cases in which all see them, but in very differ- 
ent degrees of distinctness ; yet that they see the same ob- 
jects is proved by their all agreeing as to the position and 
movement of the lights. Again, what some see as merely 
luminous clouds, others will see as distinct human forms, 
either partial or entire. In other cases all present see the 
form— whether hand, face, or entire figure— with equal dis- 
tinctness. Again, the objective reality of these appearances 
is sometimes proved by their being touched, or by their being 
seen to move objects— in some cases heard to speak, in others 
seen to write, by several persons at one and the same time ; 
the figure seen or the writing produced being sometimes un- 
mistakably recognizable as that of some deceased friend." 

The question is of ten asked, "What are the sensations of 
the medium himself when under spiritual impression ?" As, 
where the impression is very strong, the medium is generally 
thrown into a state of unconsciousness, or trance, this in- 
quiry is not often satisfactorily answered. As a contribu- 
tion to the philosophy of the subject, the following remarks, 
read by Mr. T. Herbert Noyes, B. A., (himself a partially- 
developed medium) at a meeting of the London Dialectical 
Society, are of interest : 

" I have learnt by practical experience the difficulty of in- 
ducing prejudiced men to listen even to one's premises — let 
alone one's conclusions. The extent of that difficulty may 
be estimated from the consideration of the absolute impossi- 
bility of conveying to the apprehension of a man, born with- 
out any cue of our five senses, the exact sensation experi- 
enced by those who possess them. 

"The gifts of mediumship seem to me to involve the de- 



12 SPIRIT FORMS. 

velopment of a latent sixth sense ; indeed, I am inclined to 
think that they may, perhaps, involve the development of 
several latent senses not yet acknowledged by science — 
latent senses or spiritual faculties, which are probably inher- 
ent in all spiritual natures, prematurely developed in a few 
only, but destined to be developed in all w r hen they emerge 
from the prison-house of the body, just as are the wings of 
the butterfly or the limbs of the frog, which are latent in 
the caterpillar and the tadpole. 

" I know that I should excite the derision of the skeptics 
if I were to say that I have conversed with spirits after a 
fashion which was asserted to be that in which spirits com- 
municate with each other— by an ' inner voice/ which I could 
only compare to the sensation which would be caused by a 
telegraphic apparatus being hooked on to one of the nerve- 
ganglia— a distinctly audible click accompanying every sylla- 
ble of the communication, which one could n^t say one heard, 
but of which one was made conscious by a new sense, and 
which was clearly distinguishable from thoughts originated 
in one's own mind; but it is nevertheless a fact, which I know 
to be as true as that I am now in full possession of my five 
normal senses, and in no way qualified for Hanwell. 

"This enabled me, for the first time in my life, to under- 
stand the rational insjyirational speaking, as writing medi- 
umship, which has also been given to me, enables me to 
understand inspirational writing. But this latter gift in- 
volves an expenditure of vitality and nervous force which 
is excessively debilitating if too long continued ; and I am 
now paying the penalty of excess by enforced abstinence 
from the exercise of the new faculty. 

"If it be only the unconscious action of one's own mind, 
how will our scientific infallibles account for this anomalous 
result of automatic writing? But I have already trespassed 
too long on your patience ; suffice it to say, that I can affirm, 
with the certainty of absolute knowledge, that Modern 
Spiritualism is true ; that it affords the most satisfactory evi- 
dence that the soul of man survives the death of the body, 
retains its individuality and its personal identity and its falli- 
oility, and the power of communicating, under certain deli- 
cate conditions, with those with whom it is still in sympathy 
in earth-life." 

The fact of palpable and tangible apparitions from the 
spirit- world is asserted in all the records of psychological 
phenomena that have come down to us from remotest antiqui- 
ty. The angel who met Jacob at Peniel, and wrestled with 
him, must have been a materialized spirit, if a legitimate in- 
ference may be made from parallel phenomena, repeatedly 
certified to as occurring within the last year. The hand that 
appeared on Belshazzar's palace-wall was a materialized 
hand, such as I myself have felt and seen, while in company 



SPIRIT FORMS. 13 

with other witnesses who confirmed my experience by their 
own. 

With the first irruption of the modern spiritual phenomena 
at Hydesville, N. Y., on which occasion little Kate Fox, then 
nine years old, may be said to have initiated the modern 
spiritual movement by interrogating the raps, and finding an 
intelligence in them, there were instances of the appearance 
of phantom forms and partial materializations. At the rooms 
of J. Koons, in Athens County, Ohio, in 1854, spirit-hands 
and voices were among the common manifestations. Before 
this, in 1850, the Davenport Brothers began to be developed 
as mediums ; and among the phenomena at their seances was 
that of the appearance of entire spirit-forms, so far material- 
ized as to be visible not only to sensitives, but to all the par- 
ties present. 

Mr. Home, the well-known medium, has, on several occa- 
sions, had spirit-forms appear to parties in his presence. One 
in particular is mentioned, in which a sister of Mr. S. C. Hall 
was recognized by her brother and seen clearly by Lord Lind- 
say and the entire party. 

The first carefully-prepared account that we have, in mod- 
ern times, of the repeated appearance of a materialized spirit- 
form, is that furnished by my friend, Mr. C. F. Livermore, of 
New York, formerly of the well-known firm of Livermore & 
Clewes, bankers. Another friend, one I have known and 
honored for thirty years, Dr. John F. Gray, of New York, 
writes (Jan., 1869): " Mr. Livermore's recitals of the seances 
in which I participated are faithfully and most accurately 
stated, leaving not a shade of doubt in my mind as to the 
truth and accuracy of his accounts of those at which I was 
not a witness. I saw with him the philosopher Franklin, in 
a living, tangible, physical form, several times ; and, on as 
many different occasions, I also witnessed the production of 
lights, odors, and sounds ; and also the formation of flowers, 
cloth- textures, &c, and their disintegration and dispersion. 
. . . Mr. Livermore is a good observer of spirit-phenomena ; 
brave, clear, and quick-sighted. I have known him from 



14 MISS KATE FOX. 

very early manhood, and am his medical adviser." He was 
an entire skeptic before he witnessed these phenomena. 

Of Miss Kate Fox, Dr. Gray writes : "She has been inti- 
mately known to my wife and me from the time she was a 
very young girl ; that is to say, from 1850 to this date (1867). 
At that early day in the history of the manifestations she 
was frequently a visitor in my family ; and then, through that 
child alone, without the possibility of trick from collusion 
with others, or, I may add, of imposture of any kind, all the 
various phenomena recorded by Mr. Livermore, except the 
reproduction of visible, human forms, were witnessed by Mrs. 
Gray and myself, and many other relatives and friends of our 
family." 

That Modern Spiritualism was initiated by the action of 
the child, Kate Fox, seems to admit of no doubt. The family 
of David Fox, at Hydesville, N. Y., were disturbed by cer- 
tain inexplicable knockings. His little girl, Kate, aroused 
from her evening slumber by the noise and the alarm of the 
family, asked the unknown cause of the sounds to give a cer- 
tain number of raps. It did so ; and " Oh, mother," the little 
girl exclaimed, " it hears what I say ! it knows what I tell it, 
for it has rapped the number of times I asked it !" 

Here was a discovery : the phenomena had an intelligent 
cause ! A similar intelligence had been manifested by the 
phenomena investigated by the Rev. Joseph Glanvil, at Ted- 
worth, England, in 1661, and by those which attracted the 
attention of the Wesley Family, in Lincolnshire, in 1716 ; but 
the hint was not acted on, and the manifestations ende<J in 
the families where they originated. The discovery, when 
made by Kate Fox, however, was productive of consequences 
that can be only estimated by the growth and future influ- 
ence of Modern Spiritualism. 

There is an interesting prediction connected with the sub- 
sequent career of Kate Fox. It was communicated to Mr. R. 
D. Owen by Mr. and Mrs. H. P. Townsend, living on Madison 
Avenue, New York City. In the winter of 1869 Miss Fox 
was the guest of Mrs. Townsend, who slept with her one 



AN INFANT MEDIUM. 15 

night in the hope of getting some manifestations of spirit 
power. Waking before day the two entered into conversa- 
tion. Mrs. Townsend said, "Kate, yon are a strange crea- 
ture. You will never get married. You will be sure to die 
an old maid. ,, There came a loud rap on the head-board, and 
there was spelled out through the raps : "Kate will be mar- 
ried, and will bear a child who will be the wonder of the 
world. Kate herself will be a cypher in comparison. She 
will only be remembered as his mother." "His mother!" 
said Mrs. Townsend : " it is to be a boy I" 

This was related to several of Mrs. Townsend's friends long 
before Kate went to Europe. In December, 1872, Kate was 
married in England to Mr. H. D. Jencken, barrister-at-law, 
London, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making in 
Paris in 1869. He is the son of a well-known man of science, 
and himself an earnest and intelligent investigator of psycho- 
logical phenomena, and one well able to give reasons for his 
belief in Spiritualism, as his paper read before the London 
Dialectical Society (April, 1869) abundantly shows. 

In September, 1873, there was born to these parents an in- 
fant son who, before he was three months old, began to de- 
velop powers as a medium. On one occasion his nurse, Mrs. 
McCarthy, saw four spirit hands making passes over his little 
form. Rappings on his pillow and on the iron rail of the bed- 
stead would occur almost every day. A few weeks later a 
still more marked evidence of the wonderful power of spirits 
to use this infant's organization was given. A legible com- 
munication was written through his hand, of a part of which 
the following words, a fair specimen of the chirography of 
the whole, are afac simile : 






The entire communication was as follows : 

"I low this little child God bless him advise Ms father to gs 
back to London Monday by all means Susan." 



16 MR. LIVERMORE'S EXPERIENCES. 

The following testimonial is appended to the fac simile, as 
published in the London Medium and Daybreak of May 
8th, 1874 : 

44 The above sentence was written through the hand of the infant boy of 
Mrs. and Mr. Jencken, aged five months and fifteen days, on the 6th day 
of March, 1874, at Lansdowne Terrace East, Western Road, Brighton, by 
an invisible agency, in our presence, the pencil used having been placed in 
the right hand of the infant by invisible means. Witness the hands of the 
parties present, March 6th, 1874, J. Wason, K. F. Jencken, the X mark of 
Mrs. McCarthy, the nurse who held the child. 1 ■ 

The communication was supposed to come from the depart- 
ed wife of Mr. Wason, a respectable solicitor of Liverpool, 
and one of the witnesses. The advice given was acted upon 
and found to be good. 

In a letter, published June, 1874, Mr. Jencken writes of 
this little infant : "Some few days ago, late iu the evening, 
his eyes sparkled, and the restlessness of his hands warned 
Mrs. Jencken that he wanted to write. A large sheet of pa- 
per, the only one at hand, was then placed before him. He 
wrote a long sentence, covering the sheet." That he does not 
get his power from the presence of his mother is proved by 
the fact that, on a recent occasion, when she was absent from 
home, on Mr. Jencken's taking him up to play with him, 
while the infant was trying to catch his gold chain, soft raps 
came by which intelligible messages were spelt out. 

Mr. Livermore's sittings for manifestations through Miss 
Kate Fox commenced in February, 1861, extended over a pe- 
riod of five years, and were more than three hundred in num- 
Der. The chief phenomenon was the appearance of a tangi- 
ble, visible female figure, which was sometimes accompanied 
by a male figure purporting to be Dr. Franklin, and strongly 
resembling the portraits of that well-known philosopher. 

In the female figure Mr. Livermore recognized unmistak- 
ably the face, form and voice of Estelle, his wife. " The re- 
cognition/ ■ he says, "was complete, derived alike from the 
features and her natural expression. The figure displayed 
long flowing hair, which, even in its shade of color, appeared 
like the natural tresses of my wife, and, like hers, was unusu- 



MR. LIVERMORE'S EXPERIENCES. 17 

ally luxuriant. ... I asked her to kiss me if she could ; 
and, to my great astonishment and delight, an arm was placed 
around my neck, and a real palpable kiss was implanted on 
my lips, through something like fine muslin. A head was 
laid upon mine, the hair falling luxuriantly down my face. 
The kiss was frequently repeated, and was audible in every 
part of the room." 

The tresses that dropped over his face Mr. L. describes as 
" having the scent of delicate, freshly-gathered violets.' ' He 
says: " I laid hold of the hair, which seemed to the touch, at 
first, identical with human hair ; but, after a brief space, it 
melted away, leaving nothing in my grasp. 

During the manifestations, cards, provided by Mr. Liver- 
more, were placed on the floor with a pencil ; and long mes- 
sages in his wife's chirography were found written on them. 
11 These manifestations," says Dr. Gray, " could not have 
been produced by human means ; and if you admit the com- 
petency of the witness, of which, from my knowledge of him, 
I have no doubt, they are, in my opinion, conclusive evidence 
of spirit identity." 

The following passages I quote, somewhat at random, from 
Mr. Livermore's diary : 

" The spirits of my wife and Dr. Franklin came to me in 
form at the same time — he slapping me heavily upon the 
back, while she gently patted me upon the head and shoul- 
der." 

"The spirit-robe was shown in a variety of ways, and the 
texture was exquisitely beautiful. Whenever it approached 
closely, we discovered a peculiar scent of purity, like a very 
delicious perfume of newly-gathered grass or violets." 

" I asked to be touched ; when she advanced, laid her arm 
across my forehead, and permitted me to kiss it. I found it 
as large and as real in weight as a living arm. At first it felt 
cold, then grew gradually warm." 

"My wife came in full form, placing her arms completely 
around my neck. Something resembling a veil in its contact, 
was thrown over my head ; and while it was resting there, 
2 



18 A SPIRIT-HAND EXAMINED. 

spirit-flowers were placed at my nose, exhaling the most ex- 
quisite perfume I have evei smelt. I asked what this was, 
and was told, ' My wreath of spirit-flowers.' " 

" Dr. Franklin was apparently dressed in a white cravat 
and a brown coat of the olden style ; his head was very large, 
with gray hair behind his ears ; his face was radiant with 
benignity, intelligence, and spirituality. . . . The light be- 
coming very vivid discovered to us Dr. Franklin seated, his 
whole figure and dress complete. " 

"Something like a handkerchief of transparent gossamer 
was brought ; and we were told to look at the hand which 
now appeared under the gossamer, as perfect a female hand 
as was ever created. 1 advanced my own hand, when the 
spirit-hand was placed in it, grasping mine ; and we again 
grasped hands with all the fervor of long-parted friends, my 
wife in the spirit-land and myself here." 

"It was a reality which lasted through nearly half an hour. 
I examined carefully that spirit-hand, squeezed it, felt the 
knuckles, joints, and nails, and kissed it, while it was con- 
stantly visible to my sight. I took each finger separately in 
my hand, and could discern no difference between it and a 
human hand, except in temperature ; the spirit-hand being 
cold at first, and growing warm." 

" The flowers in her hair and on her person were real in 
appearance. Over her forehead was a crown of flowers. The 
light shone vividly upon her face and figure ; and while we 
stood looking intently, she instantly, as quick as thought, 
disappeared, with a rushing sound. Then, by raps was com- 
municated, * The electricity is very strong ; and we did this 
to show you how quickly we can disappear.' Yery soon she 
returned, as real as before." 

" The figure of Dr. Franklin appeared perfectly delineated, 
seated in the window, and permitted me to examine his hair 
with my hand. The hair was to sight and touch as real as 
human hair." 

"Estelle and Dr. Franklin appeared alternately. Dr. 
Franklin's shirt-bosom and collar were as real to appearanca 



SPIRIT FLOWERS. 19 

as though made of linen. We handled them, and examined 
in the same manner his tunic, which was black, and felt like 
cloth." 

"My wife appeared leaning upon the bureau, with white 
lace hanging in front of and around her head. This lace or 
open work (like embroidery) was so real, that the figures 
were plainly discernible and could have been sketched. The 
body of her dress or robe was of spotted white gossamer, 
while the lace-work was in diamonds and flowers." 

* ' Flowers again appeared. A bright light rose to the surface 
of the table, of the usual cylindrical form, covered with gos- 
samer. Held directly over this was a sprig of roses, about 
six inches in length, containing two half-blown white roses 
and a bud with leaves. The flowers, leaves, and stem were 
perfect, and smelled as though freshly gathered. We took 
them in our fingers, and I carefully examined the stem and 
flowers." 

"By raps we were told to ' Notice, and see them dissolve.' 
*The sprig was placed over the light, the flowers drooped, 
and, in less than one minute, melted as though made of wax, 
their substance seeming to spread as they disappeared. By 
raps : 'See them come again.' A faint line immediately shot 
across the cylinder, grew into a stem, and, in about the same 
time required for their dissolution, the stem, bud and roses had 
grown into created perfection. This was several times re- 
peated, and was truly wonderful." 

"The flowers were reproduced in the same manner as last 
evening. I felt them carefully, and a rose was placed in my 
mouth, so that I took its leaves between my lips. They were 
delicate as natural rose-leaves, and cold ; and there was a pe- 
culiar freshness about them, but very little fragrance." 

On one occasion a bunch of flowers, consisting of a red 
rose, with green leaves and forget-me-nots, was shown. "I 
inspected them," says Mr. L., "for several minutes, at inter- 
vals ; turning off the gas and relighting five or six times. The 
flowers still remained. Above them was written : ' Flowers 
from our home in Heaven, 1 Finally the flowers began to fade* 



20 OBJECTIVE PKOOFS. 

and we were requested to extinguish the gas. When we did 
so, it was replaced by a spirit-light, under which the flowers 
were again distinctly visible. Then, by the raps : ' Do not 
take your eyes off the flowers ; watch them closely.' We did 
so. They gradually diminished in size, as we gazed, till they be- 
came mere specks ; and then they disappeared before our eyes. 
When I lighted the gas I found no trace cf them on the card. 
Then I carefully examined the seals on the doors and win- 
dows, anr« found them intact/ ' 

These phenomena took place in four different houses (Mr. 
Livermore's and the medium's being both changed during 
the period over which the seances extended), and were ac- 
companied with the most rigid tests. The figure of Estelle 
not only moved freely about the room, but it displaced ob- 
jects and wrote messages. It allowed a portion of its dress to 
be cut off, which, though at first of strong and apparently ma- 
terial, gauzy texture, in a short time melted away and be- 
came invisible. 

At ten of these remarkable seances Dr. Gray was present"* 
with Mr. Livermore, and at eight of them the latter's brother- 
in-law, Mr. Groute. On one occasion Dr. Gray and Mr. Liv- 
ermore were allowed to cut off with scissors a piece of the 
garment of the spirit, coming under the appearance of Frank- 
lin. The cloth seemed of so firm a texture that for a time it 
could be pulled without coining apart. It was examined 
closely until it melted away. During one sitting (No. 355, of 
May 1st, 1863) both Dr. Gray and Mr. Groute were present 
with Mr. Livermore, when the form of Dr. Franklin appear- 
ed; it was perfect, and fully recognized by all the parties. 
The last time the figure of Estelle appeared was the 2d of 
April, 1866. The number of seances had been three hundred 
and eighty-eight. 

Having had the opportunity of questioning Mr. Livermore 
closely in regard to these occurrences, and of comparing them 
with the equally remarkable experiences of other friends, well 
known to me, both in England and in the United States, I am 
satisfied that he has used the most scrupulous care in describ- 



AN INFERENCE. 21 

ing the phenomena and recording his investigations. Every 
conceivable precaution was taken to guard against imposture. 
The medium's hands were held during the most important 
manifestations. Doors and windows were carefully secured ; 
and the phenomena took place often in Mr. Livermore's own 
house, under circumstances which render the theories of fraud 
or illusion wholly inadmissible. And to crown the testimony 
we have the corroborative experience of Dr. Gray and Mr. 
Groute. These gentlemen are all still (1874) fully convinced 
of the objective reality of the phenomena and of the absence 
of any attempt at exaggeration or imposition on the part of 
any human being. 

Of the mediumship of Miss Kate Fox (now Mrs. Jencken) 
through whom these remarkable phenomena occurred, Mr. 
Wallace justly remarks : " We have here a career of twenty- 
six years of mediumship of the most varied and remarkable 
character ; mediumship which has been scrutinized and test- 
ed from the first hour of its manifestation down to this day, 
and with one invariable result— that no imposture or attempt 
at imposture has ever been discovered, and no cause ever been 
suggested that will account for the phenomena except that 
advanced by Spiritualists." 



CHAPTER II. 

The inference from the phenomena of spirit-forms is not 
that these forms represent the spirit as it appears in its own 
world. By an effort of the will, or by some ethereal chem- 
istry hardly conceivable to man in his present state, the re- 
turning spirit is supposed to reproduce certain fac-simUes of 
its appearance while in the earth-life ; doing this mainly for 
the purpose of identifying itself to surviving relatives and 
friends. A feminine spirit, who manifested herself at Mo 
ravia, was on one occasion known to produce, in rapid sue- 
cession, facsimiles of her personal appearance at six differ- 



22 A TANGIBLE APPARITION. 

ent periods of her earth-life, ranging from childhood to old 
age. 

According to Prof. Daumer, author of "Das Geisterreich," 
(Dresden, 1867), these apparitions are neither bodies nor 
souls, but a third entity, which he calls eidolon (a shape), by 
which he understand the direct self-manifestation of the 
psyche (soul). The soul, according to his theory, is restrict- 
ed to the corporeal exhibition only so long as it animates the 
body. Once released by the death of the latter, it can mani- 
fest its immanent reality in any way it pleases ; it can even 
reproduce whole episodes from its former life, including any 
number of figures of itself or of other persons ; it can also 
produce sounds and other material acts. 

That spirits have these powers is proved by the recent phe- 
nomena ; but if the theory would imply that the soul mani- 
fests itself without an organism in the spirit-world, this is 
contrary to nearly all the teachings we have from spirits and 
seers. How can it be said that the apparition is not a body, 
when the body in which it appears is tangible and undistin- 
guishable from the human form? Mrs. Florence Marryatt 
Ross- Church (1874) was allowed to put her hand on the nude 
person of the spirit Katie, and felt her heart beat. A spirit 
has been known to cut its finger with a knife, then to borrow 
a handkerchief to wind around the wound, and, at the end of 
the sitting, to return the handkerchief marked with blood. 

In a lecture delivered May 12th, 1858, Chavee, an eminent 
French chemist and scientist, put the following questions : 

1st. Is it possible for an individual being to exist without 
an organism ? 

2d. Ought the admission of the existence in man of an 
ethereal, invisible organism, of which the component ele- 
ments are not patent to the senses, to be considered as con- 
trary to the ordinary laws of chemistry, physics, or science 
in general ? 

3d. Are there cases in this life in positive pathology which 
teach us that the organism which succeeds the one we are 
using now, occasionally acts by itself, or nearly so, in such a 



TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE. 23 

manner as to give us glimpses, as it were, of an organism su- 
perior to our present one ? 

To the first question Chavee replies in the negative ; in his 
opinion there is no individual being without an organism, for 
he thinks the soul never exists alone as simple spirit, entire- 
ly separated from all organism ; in his present state man has 
two organisms : the terrestrial, which falls under the cogni- 
zance of the senses, and the ethereal, which is invisible ; at 
the dissolution of the first the soul continues to retain the 
second. 

The celebrated lecturer replies to the second question by 
affirming that we contravene no known law of science, chemis- 
try, physics, mechanics, etc., in admitting the existence of an 
ethereal or electro-luminous organism. 

The third question he answers in the affirmative: Yes, 
there are cases of positive pathology where we can grasp the 
superior organism, and observe its action, while the inferior 
one— that which is perceptible to the senses— is no longer in 
exercise. These cases are natural and magnetic somnambu- 
lism and the trance. Thus observation leads us to conclude 
that there is a future life. 

And thus neither reason, observation nor science is op- 
posed to the belief that man survives the death of the body, 
and that, provided with organs analogous to our present 
ones, he may be able to manifest himself to us by means ap- 
propriate to his new sphere, and subject to the laws which 
regulate the intercommunication. 

My attention was first called to ChaveVs lecture by M. 
Leon Favre, a name honored by Spiritualists. Since Chavee 
delivered it, the progress of the spiritual phenomena has sup- 
plied wonderful confirmation of the truth of his opinions. 
Spirits have manifested their power, not only of re-materializ- 
ing, for the purpose of temporary use or exhibition, parts 
and members not distinguishable from those of the human 
body, but they have presented entire human figures, appro- 
priately clad, conversing and moving about in the light in 
the midst of a circle of inquirers, walking arm-in-arm with 



24 THE SUPERIOR ORGANISM. 

mortals, writing letters, performing, with high powers of 
execution, on the piano, and giving other proofs of faculties 
not differing from those of ordinary mortals. 

The unceasing atomic changes of the material body, and 
the preservation of the human identity through them all, 
present the sufficient and logical reason why there should be 
a superior and permanent organism ; in short, a spiritual body. 
The wings of the butterfly lie folded in the worm. If man is 
destined to a future state, all the analogies of Nature conspire 
to suggest that the future body ought to exist wrapt in the 
present. 

The resurrection of the natural body of Jesus is neither a 
pledge nor a type of our own. There is much in the Bible 
narrative of this event that is incongruous and inconsistent. 
I cannot deny the power of spirits to work a seeming miracle. 
But what we want for the proof of our own immortality is a 
fact that shall show us that, after the destruction and disap- 
pearance of the natural body, the spirit can still manifest it- 
self to the human senses. Immortality must be inferred from 
a resurrection of life quite independent of the corruptible 
body that is laid in the tomb to mingle, like other corporeal 
exuvi® which we are all the time casting off, with the ele- 
ments. 

If, as clairvoyance proves, the mind can see without the aid 
of light or of the optic nerve, and hear without the agency of 
the apparatus of the ear, there must be spiritual organs of 
sight and hearing distinct from the physical ; and if there are 
spiritual organs of sight and hearing, it is legitimate to 
conclude that there is a complete spiritual organization or 
body. 

The phenomenal facts of Spiritualism all concur in estab- 
lishing this hypothesis. All apparitions of departed men and 
women are in the human form. 

"In apparitions/ ' says Locke, " there is something that ap- 
pears ; that which appears is not immaterial." 

With more force than he was aware of (for he wrote in igno- 
rance of the recont phenomena), Caro, an eloquent French 



THE MORAL ELEMENT. 25 

writer, whom I here translate, demands: "Does the whole 
question of our future life reduce itself for us to the inquiry 
whether the soul's metaphysical principle shall subsist? As- 
suredly not ! What Spiritualism, in accordance with the in- 
stinctive faith of the human race, calls immortality, is the im- 
mortality of the person ; of that particular soul which has 
thought, loved, acted, struggled, suffered during a life of more 
or less extent. It is the persistence of this individual existence, 
keeping, if I may so say, after death, the physiognomy which it 
created for itself here, the sign of its distinct and separate re- 
ality. This immortality alone interests us ; every other kind 
of immortality leaves us absolutely unaffected and insensible. 
It is only by an effort of abstraction that I can separate my 
substance from my person." 

There are those who, in order to magnify the moral element 
in our nature, would have us rest apathetic in regard to all 
physical evidences of a future life. According to these writ- 
ers it is only a coarse realism that seeks for palpable proofs. 
Kant tells us that the disinterested nature of our morality is 
impaired if we give to our actions for end the perspective of 
immortality. 

Mr. Emerson adopts this idea ; he objects to our severing 
duration from the moral elements ; to our teaching the im- 
mortality of the soul as a doctrine, and maintaining it by evi- 
dences. "No inspired mind," he tells us, " ever asks this ques- 
tion, or condescends to these evidences." 

This is high talk, but is it true talk ? These echoes of Kant 
(who, in his turn, gets his sentiment from the ancient Stoics 
and Sadducees), were finely satirized by Schiller who, I think, 
will pass for an "inspired mind. ,, He says : "I find pleas- 
ure in my friends ; it is agreeable to me to do my duty ; all 
this distresses me, for thus lam not virtuous." 

Was Paul, then, not "inspired" when he said to his disci- 
ples, "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain?" Did he 
not here "condescend " to phenomenal evidences as the basis 
of faith ? Does our Concord sage claim an inspiration supe- 
rior to that of Paul ? 



26 MR. EMERSON ANSWERED. 

Was Socrates not " inspired " when he drew his confident 
belief in immortality from the fact that he was in communi- 
cation with a spirit ? 

" No inspired man condescends to these evidences," says 
Mr. Emerson ; which I would supplement with the remark, 
No inspired man condescends to any thing or to any person. 
Condescension is for the vulgar and self-seeking. If Mr. 
Emerson means that the inspired man overlooks or disdains 
any facts of Nature, however lowly, then I say, Nay ; on the 
contrary, his inspiration will be just in proportion to his 
recogDition of what is true, and he will see in the physical 
evidences of a hereafter none other than the Divine imprint. 

The Rev. Joseph May repeats a common but fallacious re- 
mark when he says : " The doctrine of immortality cannot be 
demonstrated scientifically and to the intellect. It rests alto- 
gether on faith." 

Nay, it may rest on knowledge. Why is it that the belief 
in immortality is stronger among savages, Hindoos, and Chi- 
nese than among cultivated Christians ? It is because the for- 
mer have encountered hard, objective facts which have forced 
on them the belief. They have seen, have felt, have heard 
the spirits. 

It is related of a Hindoo woman that she allowed her son to 
cut off her head, so that she might, as a ghost, pursue and pun- 
ish an enemy who had wronged the family. Parallel cases 
are numerous. They do not spring from faith ; they are not 
the chimeras of mere superstition ; they rest on the conviction 
inspired by familiar objective facts. 

Arguments for the immortality of the soul have been drawn 
from the universality of the belief among all tribes and at all 
periods of time. I have heard of a pious Frenchman who 
used to peruse every new book of travels with fear lest he 
should learn of some tribe who did not have this belief. He 
dreaded the loss of a staple argument for a future state. 

But an argument that is thus contingent is of little value. 
Still the fact remains ; but Spiritualism traces it to its true 
source, and puts on it the only construction that makes it ot 
any importance. 






GENESIS OF THE BELIEF. 27 

If any one doubts that the belief in a future state is com- 
mon to all races of men, let him read Mr. E. B. Tylor's 
" Primitive Culture," in which work the fact of this belief 
being thus universal is made to take its place among the ad- 
missions of a careful and comprehensive critical science. 

The researches of geologists show that even the men of 
the pre-historic period believed fully in a hereafter for man. 
In the tenth chapter of Lyell's " Antiquity of Man," there is 
an account of the discoveries in the cave of Aurignac, in 
France, from which it appears that men even in the far-off 
times, that only geology can reckon, had their funeral feasts 
and preparations, showing that, like the North American 
Indians, they fitted out the departing spirit with food and 
implements for his journey. They believed in immortality. 

But what is the genesis of the belief? " It comes," says 
one, "from the poetical fancy." "Nay, it is born of the 
moral element in man," says another. " My affections de- 
mand it," say Buckle, Hortense Bonaparte, and every loving 
soul. " It is the mere craving of egoism and morbid desire," 
says Buchner. "It exists only in the subjective imagina- 
tion," says Feuerbach. "It originates," says Strauss, "in 
the survivor's retention of the conception of the deceased, 
which meets him with delusive reality in dreams." " It is a 
sentiment, a day-dream, a morbid and presumptuous conceit, 
the offspring of a diseased state of the pulmonary organs," 
say Messrs. Yogt, Moleschott, Taine, and others. 

All these theories are scattered like mist, by Spiritualism, 
which declares to us that the proofs which have made the be- 
lief in immortality so universal and effective do not come in 
the large sense from anything so capricious as human fancy 
and desire, so questionable and evanescent as human tradi- 
tion, or so transient and fickle as human sentiment and opin- 
ion. They do not spring from any arbitrary systems, rituals, 
theologies, philosophies, religions, whatsoever. On the con- 
trary, the abiding proofs spring from certain constantly re- 
curring facts of human nature, such as Modern Spiritualism 
adduces, and which, though they may have their limitations, 



28 PHENOMENAL PBOOFS. 

and may not be open to the immediate experience and com- 
mand of all persons at will, are yet so general, so surprising in 
their character, and so widely credited by those who have ex- 
perienced them, that they have kept alive through the ages, 
among the cultivated as well as the uncivilized races, that be- 
lief in a future state for which merely speculative reasoners 
assign so many false origins. 

The author of " Oriental Keligions," Mr. Samuel Johnson, 
does not dissent from Kant and Emerson. He thinks that 
the evidences of immortality which do not meet certain con- 
ditions of assurance are "crude and imperfect. ,, These con- 
ditions, as far as I can glean them from his text, are : " To 
live in the whole ; to know God by discernment of the soul 
as real being ; to know one's self as one with necessary be- 
ing. For," asks Mr. Johnson, " how can we possibly know 
ourselves immortal otherwise than by experience of what is 
imperishable, and by knowing that we are in and of and in- 
separable from it ? " 

Among the evidences to which Mr. Johnson objects, as 
lacking " spiritual vitality and relation," are those which rest 
11 on testimonies to the reappearance of many persons after their 
bodily death, as through some natural law ; and those which 
proceed on the ground that we can be spiritually fed by the 
reflection of our curiosity or desire, or even by the echoes of 
our gossip, from behind the veil." A blow would seem to be 
here aimed at Modern Spiritualism. 

When the question is, What is the destiny of man ? to reply 
by telling the interrogator to " live in the whole," to " discern 
the soul as real being," may be, for all that I know to the 
contrary, to address a certain class of minds profitably and 
intelligibly ; but surely there must be a large class of 
thoughtful persons whose wants are not at all met by "condi- 
tions of assurance " like these. As well might you point 
them to a fog-bank, and say, " See there a proof of the eternal 
world!" 

To assume that these unsatisfied persons are an inferior or- 
der of minds will hardly answer. Alexander Humboldt was 



ALL DAKK. 29 

a stubborn realist and disbeliever, but a great man neverthe- 
less. The notion that the belief in immortality, which one 
gets from the phenomenal proofs of it, is " crude and imper- 
fect " as compared with that which another gets from discern- 
ing "the soul as real being,' ' is certainly not established by 
any evidences of superior insight, faith, or refinement on the 
part of those who would undervalue the process by which the 
Spiritualist arrives at his convictions. 

Nothing can be trivial which impresses me with a belief in 
my immortality. Whether it be a " testimony to the reap- 
pearance of a person after his bodily death," or an " echo of 
gossip from behind the veil" — whether it be the waving of a 
long- vanished hand or the simple movement of a table inde- 
pendent of human touch— if it serve the purpose of convinc- 
ing me that I shall survive the dissolution of the mortal body, 
then is the evidence to me good and sufficient, and I will 
" condescend to it " with a grateful heart. 

Is the proof palpable not wanted ? Consider the deadness 
of all belief in a future for man among some of the foremost 
minds of the age. Listen to the almost contemptuous denials 
that come from such men as Haeckel, Yogt, Feuerbach, 
Buchner, Moleschott, and many of the leading scientists of 
Germany. See the indisposition of their brother scientists in 
England and America to gainsay what they so persistently 
and boldly assert. Hear the shouts of approval from a crowd- 
ed scientific assemblage in Germany when Yogt proclaimed 
atheism and annihilation as the creed of science. 

If facts like these will not satisfy you that the " condescen- 
sion " which stoops to palpable evidences of immortality is 
not superfluous or untimely, listen to the words that come 
from the lips of so devout a Christian as the late Albert 
Barnes, of Philadelphia, well known to the religious public 
at home and abroad. Hear his cry of doubt and despair ; 
" It is all dark, dark, dark to my soul, and I cannot disguise 
it. In the distress and anguish of my own spirit I confess 
that I see no light whatever." 

Hardly less desponding than this in tone was the recent 



30 INTO THE LIGHT. 

utterance of President HcCosh, of Princeton College, while 
officiating at a funeral. 

Turn from wailings of anguish like these to the last words, 
almost playful in their serenity, of the Spiritualist, Socrates. 
Crito asks him, " How and where shall we bury you ?" Soc- 
rates rebukes the phrase. "Bury me," he replies, "in any 
way you please, if you can catch me> and I do not escape from 
you!" And, at the same time smiling and looking around on 
his hearers, he said, "I cannot persuade Crito, my friends, 
that I am this Socrates who is now conversing with you and 
arranging each part of this discourse ; but he obstinately 
thinks I am that which he shall shortly behold dead, and he 
wants to know how he shall bury me. But that which I have 
been arguing with you so long, that when I have drunk this 
poison I shall be with you no longer, but shall depart straight- 
way to some happy state of the blessed, I seem to have ar- 
gued in vain, and I cannot convince him. . . . Say not, at 
the interment, that Socrates is laid out, or is carried out, or is 
buried. Say that you bury my body. Bury it, then, in such 
a manner as is pleasing to you, and as you think is most 
agreeable to our laws." 

The sequel of the familiar narrative, the introduction of 
the hemlock, the drinking of it amid the tears and lamenta- 
tions of friends, the solemn silence enjoined by himself, the 
pacing to and fro, the perfect equanimity and the unquench- 
able faith manifested in all his last words and acts, show that 
Socrates fulfilled in his death all the professions of his life. 

As no unworthy pendant to this picture of the death of Soc- 
rates, learn how another Spiritualist, Mrs. Rosanna C. Ward, 
of Cincinnati, met her end. For several years she had said 
to her husband that she should pass away in the autumn of 
1873, in the twilight of a beautiful day. The fact verified 
her prediction. She, too, like Socrates, was a sensitive or me- 
dium, in her relations to spiritual influences. 

A few days before her departure she sent for a Unitarian 
clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Tickers, and requested him to con- 
duct the services at her funeral, and to say, " This woman did 



A FEMALE SOCRATES. 31 

not die in the faith of Spiritualism, but in an absolute knowt* 
edge of the reality of the after-life and the fact of spirit-inter- 
course." 

She arranged all her affairs, and gave minute directions. 
11 After the spirit leaves the body," she said, " lay the body 
out for cooling in this room ; lower the windows about six 
inches, and allow nobody to come in," &c. ..." There must 
be no sitting up. Go, all, and take your needed rest, as 1 
shall be doing." 

The day preceding her death she lapsed into a deep trance, 
and was absent three hours. During this time her arm was 
pulseless and her breathing was imperceptible. When she 
re- took possession of her body, she said, "There is so much 
life in the back brain that I could not pass. away. The back 
brain must die a little more before I can leave." She then 
said to Mr. Ward, who had just handed her a flower, " The 
flowers are a thousand times more beautiful in the spirit- 
world than these ! But all God's works are beautiful, if we 
are only in sympathy with them. My dear, it is all right." 

She then spoke of the interviews she had been having with 
departed relatives and friends, and said, "I will go to-mor- 
row." On the morrow, a few moments before she passed 
away, she gave some instructions for her husband's comfort, 
and then, with a smile, looking him in the face, said, "My 
work is now done ; the curtain falls." And so the well-pre- 
pared spirit passed on to the better clime, "the purer ether, 
the diviner air." 

What truly " inspired " mind can depreciate evidences that 
could lend such a lustre to death as they did in these cases of 
Socrates and Mrs. Ward ? Who shall disparage the proof 
palpable of immortality when it can thus give us joy for 
mourning, beauty for ashes, and make the dissolution of the 
mortal body the opened pathway to a nobler and more beau- 
tiful life ? 

It is by no means contended that the mere knowledge of 
immortality, any more than of anatomy, inspires all the vir- 
tues. We have seen that it may be accompanied with ex- 



32 MR. HAZARD'S EXPERIENCES. 

treme vindictiveness and malignity. Belief in anything must 
be vitalized by right thinking before it can be productive of 
good. 

But to say that the reflective mind is not lifted to a higher 
plane of thought and aspiration by an assured sense of con- 
tinuous life, is an absurdity. As well might it be said that 
the man who expected to live only a week would make the 
same provisions for his life that he would if he expected to 
live a century. As well might it be said that the Ptolemaic 
view of the universe is as fruitful in sublime conceptions as 
the Copernican. 

Spiritualism regards man, not only from the side of his lim- 
itations, but of his possibilities. " Why dost thou wonder, 
oh, man/' says Isidore, "at the height of the stars or the 
depth of the sea ? Enter into thine own soul, and wonder 
there 1" 



CHAPTER III. 

In the year 1871 the materializations of spirit-forms at the 
house of Mr. Keeler, in Moravia, N. Y., began to attract pub- 
lic attention. The medium, Mrs. Mary Andrews, was of 
Irish parentage, and lived for some time as a domestic in Mr. 
Keeler's family. She was described (Dec, 1871) as "a well- 
formed, comely married woman between twenty-five and 
thirty years old, and the mother of three little girls.' ' 

Mr. Thomas R. Hazard, of Rhode Island, has given, in 
his "Eleven Days in Moravia," a clear account of the char- 
acter of the phenomena. Mr. Hazard— who must now have 
numbered his three-score and ten years— is well known to me 
personally as one of the most diligent and careful investiga- 
tors of the facts of Spiritualism. A man of culture and of 
leisure, a wholly independent witness, his testimony is enti- 
tled to the greatest respect. He is a brother of Rowland G. 
Hazard, distinguished among metaphysical writers for his 
volume entitled "Freedom of Mind in Willing." 



MR. HAZARD'S EXPERIENCES. 33 

The manifestations at Moravia used to commence with a 
"dark circle/ ' at which questions would be answered by 
spirit-lights, three appearing as an affirmative. Then the 
keys of the piano would be struck, water would be sprinkled 
in the faces of the sitters, and stars, or lights, would appear 
in various parts of the room, and sometimes engage in play- 
ful exhibitions, as if mingling in a dance. Spirit-voices 
would join in the singing. The heads and persons of sitters 
would be patted by spirit-hands, and often spirits would man- 
ifest themselves to the sitters by speaking audibly, or in dis- 
tinct whispers, and sometimes at considerable length. A 
spirit- voice would at last call for a light, and the dar^ stance 
would close. 

The medium would then take her seat in a cabinet some 
ten feet by four or five in size, and having an aperture of 
about twelve by thirteen inches, screened by a piece of black 
broadcloth some fourteen inches square. The cloth was fas- 
tened at the top only, on the inside of the aperture, so as to 
admit or exclude the light, and the spirits in attendance 
would raise or drop it at their pleasure. The room where 
the spectators sat would be partially lighted by a kerosene 
lamp, so adjusted as to reflect on the aperture. 

After singing, in which spirit-voices would sometimes join, 
faces, busts, arms and hands would appear, the faces being 
visible, and even the motion of the lips in speaking being 
plainly discernible. Frequently these faces would be readily 
recognized by some one or more of the spectators as repre- 
sentations of departed friends ; and the voices would be some- 
times so characteristic as to afford a sufficient test of identity. 

Mr. Hazard describes the apparent efforts made by his de- 
ceased wife to manifest her presence at Moravia. For sever- 
al years previous he had been promised, through various me- 
diums, that, before he joined her in spirit-life, she would be 
able not only to show herself, but to converse with him as 
plainly as she ever did whilst on earth. Through two medi- 
ums she had expressed her intention of manifesting herself at 
Moravia. 

3 



84 ME. HAZARD'S EXPEDIENCES. 

On the 14th and 21st of December, 1871, a message, pur- 
porting to be from Theodore Parker, in regard to these mani- 
festations, came through Mrs. Staats, of New York, in which 
the following extraordinary passage occurs : " As these mani- 
festations increase, they will spread everywhere, and the re- 
sult will be spirits talking face to face with man. I see great 
advancement and earnest investigation everywhere. One 
thing is certain : nothing else can make man a law to himself 
and a light to others, and there is but one thing to look for 
progress in, namely, individual reform— learning to think and 
act for one's self." 

The prediction, italicized above, was soon singularly veri- 
fied, in the case of the spirit "Katie King" in London. 

On one occasion an accompanying spirit described Mr. Haz- 
ard's wife as "standing back, partly because she could not 
attain the proper conditions and partly to give place to other 
spirits who were anxious to manifest themselves to their 
friends." Several times she would throw her arms at full 
length, with hands clasped, out of ttie aperture. The exhibi- 
tion was perfectly life-like and natural. 

Another day, when Mr. Hazard asked if she still meant to 
make another effort to show her face, in reply an arm was 
thrown upward some twelve or fifteen inches above the top of 
the aperture, in the full light, while she made lively raps on 
the partition with her fingers. 

At length, on one of the last days of his stay at Moravia, 
he saw a face gradually developing, or approaching the aper- 
ture, that he soon recognized " unmistakably " as that of his 
wife. She seemed highly gratified, and so expressed herself. 
At first she wore spectacles. Then the face disappeared, 
but quickly returned without the spectacles, and " looking as 
natural as in earth-life." 

Upon this Mr. Hazard said : " It is enough, Fanny. I want 
no more ; I am now fully satisfied ;" at which she thrust her 
face partly out of the aperture, and said, in a clear, loud 
whisper, " We have tried hard, Thomas, to make myself plain 
to you, and I thank God that we have succeeded." 



ME. HAZARD'S EXPERIENCES. 33 

The figure was within six feet of where Mr. Hazard sat, 
and he saw her lips move as distinctly and naturally whilst 
she was speaking as he ever saw them in earth-life. Over- 
come with joyful emotion he said, "Kiss me, darling!" 
whereupon her hand was twice raised to her lips as she threw 
him two kisses. 

" It may be imagined," says Mr. Hazard, " what my emo- 
tions were, just as the last moment of my last seance was 
about to expire, to see my wife's face suddenly presented be- 
fore me, as plain and distinct as I ever saw it in our own 
house— not as it looked in the last weary hours of life, nor 
even yet as it was in less mature years, when the color had 
partially faded from her cheeks, but in the full bloom of 
health, and all the glorious beauty that so pre-eminently dis- 
tinguished her early womanhood. Before this crowning 
proof, my experiences had banished all doubts from my mind 
as regards a future state of existence ; but now, even belief 
that had passed into knowledge, was doubly confirmed. I had 
at last obtained all I sought for. I had looked upon the re-incar- 
nated spirit-face of a loved one, the identity of whose features 
I am not only willing to affirm to, under the pains and penal- 
ties of perjury, before any assemblage of mortals or tribunal 
on earth, but, if need be, swear to it, on peril of my salva- 
tion, before the assembled hosts of heaven and the judgment 
seat of God." 

In a letter, dated 1873, Mr. Hazard writes : 

" For the last seventeen years I have been an investigator 
of the alleged spirit phenomena ; during which time my 
leisure, as well as my inclination, has prompted me to hold 
converse, through the'agency of many scores of those sensi- 
tive and peculiarly organized persons called 'spirit mediums,' 
with what I deem" to be spirits of the so-called dead ; and of 
the many hundreds or thousands with whom I have in this 
way communicated, all that have referred to the subject alike 
testify that there is a spiritual form involved in every human 
body," and that this form not only retains its natural life and 
Identity on passing to the higher life, but is clothed in vesture 
more or less resplendent and beautiful, or otherwise, in ac- 
cordance with its moral attainments or degrees of innocence 
or guilt, that attached to it at the period it passed from earth, 
or which it has since acquired in spirit-life. 

"With like unanimity returning spirits allege that under 



36 OTHEE WI TXESSES. 

raediumistic conditions they have, with the aid of some occult 
alchemy unexplainable to 'material senses, the power to ex- 
tract elements from their surroundings, wherewith they are 
enabled to present themselves in an exact resemblance to their 
earth body, together with its clothing and peculiarities, and 
thus enable their earth friends to identity them, and, in many 
instances, respond to their loving advances more readily than 
they otherwise would. Absurd as this seems to some, and 
once seemed to me, of the fact 1 have now no doubt ; nor, with 
the many and varied experiences I have had, can I believe 
that anything will ever shake my belief and acceptance 
of it." 

Mr. L. A. Bigelow, of Boston, an investigator w r ho shrinks 
from no trouble in verifying a fact, and whose candor is be- 
yond a question, was at Moravia, October 20th, 1871 ; and he 
relates the following as a part of his experiences there : 

"As the circle was small, we were within eiaht feet of the 
opening, so that everything was visible. Very soon two deli- 
cate female hands, closed and then opened, as if in benedic- 
tion, appeared at the window before us ; a lace was next seen, 
but indistinctly. When asked whose friend it was, a finger 
seemed to point to a lady at my leit, and then move toward 
me. I inquired if I were the one indicated, whereupon the 
whole hand was shown and shaken, as if for joy. I then 
requested the lace to come more, into the light. It did so, but 
not far enough to enable me to distinguish it clearly. 1 then 
said, ' Please present yourself fully in the aperture,' when I 
most plainly saw a man's face, with gray whiskers, gold spec- 
tacles and bald h< ad, I recog lized it beyond question as that 
of my father-in-law, the late Otis Tufts, of this city, and so 
remarked aloud. It bowed as if to give assent, and disap- 
peared. I end< avored to recall it, that it might speak to me, 
but without avail. . . . No one present knew my name or 
address till after the close of the seance." 

Mr. Isaac Kelso, of Alton, 111., writes to the St. Louis Dem- 
ocrat, (January, 1873,) as follows : 

"I saw many strange faces at the aperture— some days from 
ten to fifteen or twenty— the most of whom were recognized 
by some one or more present in the circle. At length two of 
my si>ters succeeded in materializing themselves, and appear- 
ed side by side at the aperture. The recognition was un- 
doubted, my sister at my side recognizing them at the same 
moment I did; and strangers present remarking upon the 
family resemblance. But the certainty was made doubly 
certain when the apparitions mentioned incidents in their 
earth-life and ours which we readily and vividly remem- 
bered. 

" A few days subsequent, our mother appeared, threw open 
the door of the cabinet, and showed herself to us from head to 
foot. 

"Six times during the three weeks an old acquaintance, 



SPIEIT SPEECH. 3J 

who died a materialist, appeared to me, looked and talked 
naturally ; referred repeatedly to his materialistic notions, 
*and how unhappy they made him ; said much about his pres- 
ent condition, and its advantages over the former; tried to 
give me an idea of spirit-life, the pursuits, pleasures and 
amusements of spirits, as well as their institutions for doing 
good, educating the ignorant, and lifting higher the low and 
debased. 

" A few days before I left the place a gentleman came there, 
bring in g with him two little girls— his own daughters — the 
elder perhaps eight years old, the younger about six. Before 
going into the seance room he said to me : ' When about leav- 
ing home my wife observed, "I would go too if I thought 
mother would show herself there ; but as she was always op- 
posed to Spiritualism, I 'm sure she '11 have no desire to make 
any manifestation !" But lo ! after the light seance began, 
who should appear first at the aperture but this same old 
grandmother ! She bent her eyes affectionately upon the 
children. The little girls gazed a moment in mute astonish- 
ment, then both at once, clapping their hands in ecstacy, ex- 
claimed : ' Grandma ! Grandma !' 

'"Keep still,' said the father, in a low tone of voice, and 
evidently much moved ; then to the apparition he said, ' You 
did n't believe in this a few weeks ago?' 

" ' No,' replied the spirit ; 'but, thank God, it is true V These 
words were uttered very distinctly and with a peculiar stress 
of voice, indicating: earnestness 'and deep feeling. The old 
lady had been dead but three weeks." 

Messrs. Daniel D. Bonnett and John Hay ward, under date 
of New York, Sept. 25th, 1872, testify that in the light circle 
they saw several faces, arms and hands, and that the faces so 
closely resembled those whom they represented, that in near- 
ly all cases they were readily recognized ; that the late Rev. 
John Pierpont came and was simultaneously recognized by 
many, and that he made a short address, concluding with the 
words, "Thank God, we live after death." 

The following is a specimen of the addresses made by the 

spirits at Moravia : 

"Friends, it is much better to say nothing, unless you can 
say something good. You will all be sorry if you have in- 
jured any one. but never for the good you have done. Be not 
ashamed, friends, to proclaim the truth of Spiritualism to the 
world. The time is approaching when you will be proud of 
it. Oh, how I long to speak to the hearts that are crushed 
when their loved ones are taken from them, and they think 
they have laid them in the ground ! I long to say, ' Rejoice ! 
they are all free. Be glad ! they are all happy in the spirit- 
land.' And, friends, it is but a short time before you will meet 
them. God bless you all I" 



38 SPIRIT SPEECH. 

AH very simple this— very common -place, you will say- 
language which a child might have uttered ! And yet may it 
not be that the highest truths are ever the commonest, like 
the common sunshine and the common air ? What more, af- 
ter all, than this substantially, could the highest seraph have 
said in the way of saving truth ? 

Occasionally, in the dark circles at Moravia, the spirits 
would speak through a trumpet ; and in one instance, a skep- 
tic having blackened the small end of it with printers' ink, 
the ink was found, as soon as a light was struck, on the 
mouth of the medium. Suspicions of fraud were raised, as 
usual, but there was no fraud in the case. The fact has been 
repeatedly proved that when an adhesive or coloring matter is 
taken on the hand or lips of the spirit, it may reappear on the 
corresponding part of the medium's person. The " nerve 
aura," " Psychic or electric force," or what ever it may be that 
is abstracted from the medium to form the materialization, 
carries back with it the foreign substance it has contracted. 
Innocent mediums have sometimes been unjustly condemned 
by persons ignorant of this curious fact. 

At a sitting described by Mrs. Chester Packard, No. 83 Lan- 
caster street, Albany, N. Y., as occurring Nov. 21st, 1871, at 
Moravia, a spirit with a white beard and long white hair came 
to the aperture, and said, " Friends, I am glad to see you here. 
You have come to Moravia to see strange things, but they will 
be seen in other places within a few years at furthest ; you will 
meet your spirit- friends on the highway, and they will come 
into your houses, and you will recognize them without fear or 
doubt." 

The first part of the prediction has been verified in a strik- 
ing manner as we have already seen. This spirit, when about 
to leave, having been asked for his name, laughed and said : 
"You have been singing * John Brown's body lies mouldering 
in the grave,' and you did not know John Brown when he 
was talking to you." 

Mrs. Packard gives the following account of her recogni- 
tion of the presence of three of her departed relatives : 



MRS. PACKARD'S TESTIMONY. 39 

"Among the floating lights was one, star-like in appear- 
ance, that seemed to work by itself, or for a purpose of its 
own. Finally it became detached from the rest of the lights, 
and floated away to the extreme corner of the room, when it 
began to cross and recross the room, eominsr a little nearer to 
me each time it crossed. It was nearly as high up as the ceil- 
ing. My whole attention was attracted to i:. Soon it gained 
a position immediately over my head, and, while I was strain- 
ing my eyes to look upward, I was aware of a presence around 
me, and in a moment the sweet voice of my spirit-son said, 
'Mother ! mother V 

"He took hold of my left hand and patted it so lovingly; 
he seemed to have my' hand between both of his, as I could 
feel a hand on each side of mine. He then raised his hand to 
my head, and smoothed my forehead. He drummed on the 
glasses of my spectacles, and then seemed to take hold with 
both hands and remove the spectacles entirely from my head, 
and then place them back again — this operation being repeat- 
ed three times. Just then the spirits called for a light, my 
son's manifestations at once ceased, and the star became in- 
visible. The spectacles my son removed from my head were 
a pair that he placed there himself for the first' time, some 
seven or eight years ago." 

After the lamp was lighted, the spirits began to show them- 
selves at the aperture. Soon, in a full glare of light, she saw 
her deceased husband. She writes : 

" He stood before me smiling ; his lips were moving, as if 
holding an earnest conversation, although I heard no sound. 
As he seemed about to move away I called him back, saying, 
'Do not leave ; I want to see you again.' In a moment he 
was back again, and my mother stood beside him, looMng so 
happy and smiling at me ! She stood long enough for all in 
the room to observe that she wore a cap with a full border on 
each side, and plain across the top, with loops of narrow 
white satin ribbon in the border on each, and tied under the 
chin with white satin ribbon. She wore (as in life) a band 
of brown hair across the forehead. The band seemed pushed 
back a little too high, and showed some of her gray hair be- 
low the band— which was very natural. She looked precise- 
ly as she did when in the form. 

11 As she was moving away, I asked her to come back again 
that I might see her more. She nodded, smiled, and was gone, 
but did not return. My husband went out of sight, and re- 
turned five or six times at my request. Each time he came I 
looked at him closely ; I saw a dimple on his cheek and a pe- 
culiar wrinkle in the out-comerof his eye— the same he used 
to have in earth-life when much pleased/ All was so life-like! 
My husband looked as he used to in health, and very much 
better than he did for months before he passed away ; his lips 
moved as if talking, but I did not see my mother's lips move 
at all. I looked after them until they were gone ; I felt the 
great question answered— that the soul lived on, and, under 
proper condition, could return and look at, and be looked upon 
by, those left behind !" 



40 DK. SLADE'S MEDIUMSHIP. 

Dr. A. S. Hay ward, writing from Moravia, under date of 
Aug. 31st, 1872, after describing the phenomena, remarks : 
" In conclusion, I would say, that what occurs in the pres- 
ence of Mrs. Andrews I believe to be done by disembodied 
spirits that have once lived on this earth. I could find hardly 
a person who has attended the seances who did not hold to 
the same opinion." 

Testimonials similar to these could be multiplied to fill 
large volumes ; but the time has gone by when they were 
needed. They are now corroborated by the larger and more 
conclusive phenomena to which I havje yet to call attention. 

The phenomena of materialization have attended the me- 
diumship of so many in the United States that I can only 
attempt to narrate a few well-attested cases. 

In the presence of Dr. Henry Slade, of New York, remark- 
able physical proofs of spirit power have been repeatedly 
witnessed. Mrs. A. A. Andrews, of Springfield, Mass., (1873) 
testifies in regard to some of these as follows : — 

" I have had a spirit-hand write a letter on paper placed 
upon my lap, when the room was sufficiently lighted by gas 
for me to see distinctly the long lead pencil held in the white 
fingers, and remaining in sight, directly under my eyes, until 
the writing was finished, when both hand and pencil disap- 
peared ; in a moment afterwards the latter was thrown upon 
the table, close to our hands, from a point opposite to where 
the medium sat. 

" I have seen the faces of spirits within three feet of me, 
about whose identity I could no more mistake than I could 
fail to recognize members of my own family who are still in 
the material body. 1 have watched these faces condense and 
form from what seemed a luminous mist. I have seen them 
smile brightly and naturally upon me. 

"I have had one among 'them, in compliance with a sug- 
gestion made from the impulse of the moment, turn away, 
showing me the back of the head, that I might recognize the 
naturally curling hair, falling upon the neck, as worn in life. 
I have watched the moving lips, and heard whispered mes- 
sages of love and warning sent to absent friends." 

Communications purporting to come from Mrs. Andrews's 
spirit-son were written upon a slate which was laid in full 
view, with a fragment of pencil beneath it ; and sometimes 
this took place while the slate was held by herself. The men- 
tal proofs of identity were so strong, that after many repetitions 



MKS. HOLLIS'S MEDIUMSHIP. 41 

and ever-recurring tests, doubt became more difficult to her 
than belief. A hand, in shape and size like her son's, came 
forth in broad daylight. She saw and felt it ; it patted and 
caressed her, and played with her dress ; it took out her 
watch by a guard which used to belong to him, and then the 
following words were written :•— " Dear mother, always wear 
my guard ; I love to see you have it." 

The phenomenon of slate- writing in the light, independent 
of human touch, has been witnessed by hundreds at Dr. 
Slade's seances. Mr. Clarke Irvine, of Oregon, Holt County, 
testified that he received a message which was written on a 
slate, placed on his own head, while Dr. Slade sat some yards 
from him, and the message was correctly signed, "Thomas 
Irvine, your grandfather ; " Mr. Irvine never having seen 
the medium before, or communicated with him in any way. 

Mr. H. Barnard, of Minneapolis, Minn., a stranger to Dr. 
Slade, brought a folding slate of his own ; a grain of pencil 
was put inside of it, and while no one touched the slate, and 
it lay before him in plain sight on the table, a message, pur- 
porting to be from Mr. Barnard's mother, was written, 
which was so characteristic and apt, that he says of it : "I 
now have as good evidence of my mother's existence as I 
have of that of my brothers and sisters whose letters I re- 
ceive by mail." 

Many of the manifestations known to Modern Spiritualism 
have occurred in the presence of Mrs. E. J. Hollis, of Louis- 
ville, Kentucky. These include levitations of the medium, 
slate- writing independent of the human touch, the exhibition 
of spirit hands, transmission of messages through a common 
telegraph by spirit power, singing and talking by spirit voices, 
and, finally, the materialization of spirit forms. 

For a period of thirty weeks, Dr. N. B. Wolfe, of Cincin- 
nati, investigated the phenomena through Mrs. Hollis, spar- 
ing no expenditure of time, money or personal ease, in order 
to satisfy himself of their character, and engaging other 
persons of well-known intelligence to cooperate with him. 
He gives the result in a volume of 543 pages (1874). On tha 



42 MRS. HOLLIS'S MEDIUMSHIP. 

27th of May, 1872, he received a test which could not fail to 
make a deep impression ; he saw and heard his deceased mother 
under circumstances which lie describes as follows : 

"The table on which the music-box was placed, stood not 
more than two feet from the cabinet. I proceeded to wind it 
up, and was just turning to resume my seat in the circle, in 
doing which Iliad to face the aperture. As 1 did this, 1 be- 
held my mother 'a face in the opening of the cabinet door. ' Why, 
mother,' i exclaimed, 'is it possible?' I riveted my gazeupon 
her for twenty seconds, during which time she smiled, bowed, 
and pronounced my name. The curtain then swung between 
her face and me. All in the room saw and heard as I did. I 
was not more than two feet from tho'cabinetand aperture. 

" I am not given to illusions, and rarely dream when asleep, 
much less when awake. I am a very cool, quiet man in emer- 
gencies, and was never more so than upoi this occasion. 
Every person in the circle saw this face, but only I recognized 
it. It was niy mother's face. She recognized me, and called 
me by my given name. To make assurance doubly sure, I 
said, 'Mother, please materialize your left hand, and present 
it at the aperture.' 

'Iua very brief space of time a left hand appeared at the 
opening, with the forefinger shut at the middle joint. My 
mother had just such a ringer on her left hand. When a 
child she received a burn which contracted the tendon, and 
fixed the forefinger of her left hand permanently in that 
position." 

Instances innumerable could be named where peculiarities 
similar to that here described have been reproduced, in these 
extemporized representations of the mundane body. Quick 
as thought the communicating spirit seems to be able to show 
the bodily scars or malformations which are needed for iden- 
tification. 

On another occasion the spirit-representation of Dr. Wolfe's 
mother remained at the aperture two minutes, and was recog- 
nized not only by himself but by his nephew, a lad fifteen 
years old, who had never been at a seance before. 

It is unnecessary to record the many explicit testimonials 
to the recognition of departed friends in the materializations 
through Mrs. Hollis. Mr. D. H. Hale and his son, Clinton 
B. Hale, from Indiana, being present, both recognized simul- 
taneously, the one a daughter, the other a sister. A young 
lady appeared and wrote: "Dear Mr. Hale, how kind you 
were to me ! " Mr. Hale wept as he recognized the features of 
one whom he had assisted in her destitution. 



KATIE IX PHILADELPHIA. 43 

Mr. F. B. Plimpton, associate editor of the Cincinnati Com- 
mercial, gives, under date of May 8th, 1873, an account of his 
investigations. In the autumn of 1872 he had studied the 
phenomena that take place in the presence of Mrs. Hollis, 
and, though thoroughly satisfied of their genuineness, was 
not quite sure that they could not be explained upon some 
other than the spiritual solution. But to this he was driven 
after prosecuting his inquiries further ; and such has been 
the fate of nearly all the persevering investigators with whom 
I am acquainted. He concludes his Report as follows : 

"Beginning these investigations as a skeptic, with a feeling 
almost of contempt for believers in Spiritualism, but at the 
same time determined to testify to the truth, regardless of 
the consequences to myself, to what other conclusion can I 
come, as one after another of my doubts have been vanquish- 
ed, and my unbelief overcome, than that these manifestations 
are precisely what they profess to b>3 / The conviction is forced 
upon me, that intelligences, invisible to us, save as they 
manifest tnemselves through the medium of persons peculiar- 
ly endowed, can and do communicate with the living, and 
that they have as absolutely a personal existence and identi- 
ty as ourselves. 

"They not only assert this, but assure us that they live in 
a world as rationally constructed for the development^ their 
finite capacities and for their progression to still higher con- 
ditions of being. In manifesting their presence to our grosser 
sense, they assure us they employ natural agencies; and as 
the world becomes more receptive of the truth, they antici- 
pate still greater power to reveal themselves, and convince 
us that we are indeed compassed about by an innumerable 
cloud of witnesses, testifying to the immortality of man." 

The 12th of May, 1874, a spirit calling herself "Katie King" 
appeared in a materialized form at a seance in Philadelphia, 
Mr. and Mrs. Holmes being the mediums. Dr. Henry T. 
Child, himself a "sensitive/' and at the same time an expe- 
rienced and studious investigator, was present. He writes 
that on the 5th of June, while he and Bobert Dale Owen were 
among the witnesses, Katie King appeared in "a very beauti- 
ful shape, clothed in white robes." June 7th, they had a long 
conversation with Katie at the cabinet, window. She allowed 
Dr. Child to count her pulse ; it was about seventy- two per 
minute, and perfectly natural. She also permitted him 
to see her tongue, and asked if he thought she was "right 
•relL" 



44 THE HOLMES AFFAIR. 

Mr. Owen was of the opinion that the "Katie King," or 
" Annie Morgan, " who thus appeared, was identical with the 
spirit who for three years communicated through Miss Cook 
in London. There were many circumstances, however, that 
threw doubt on the identity. The features were unlike those 
of the Londou Katie. In London the Holmeses, one or both, 
had been proved to possess remarkable medial powers ; but it 
was also charged that they would sometimes eke out their 
manifestations with imposture. It will be seen further on 
in my narrative (page 114) that both Mr. Owen and Dr. Child, 
having encountered what seemed to them doubtful features 
in the phenomena, withdrew their confidence and publicly 
expressed their dissatisfaction. When we consider that they 
had been forewarned by English investigators that frauds 
might be anticipated, the wonder is that they should have 
been so over-sanguine in their expressions of confidence under 
the circumstances. That genuine phenomena were given, 
however, there is now every reason to believe. The whole 
subject of spirit materialization was thrown under a cloud 
for a time by the conflicting statements growing out of the 
Holmes affair. But as the phenomena through other mediums 
were multiplied, and test conditions were adopted, and the 
number of witnesses greatly increased, the affair gradually 
dwindled into insignificance. 

In weighing charges of imposture, it should be borne in 
mind by investigators, that however the ignorant may scout 
and ridicule the idea, it is nevertheless probable that under 
certain inharmonious conditions such mischievous spirits may 
be attracted as will force an unconscious medium to do things 
automatically which, to the inexperienced, look like deliber- 
ate frauds on his part. The more we study the phenomena 
the larger becomes our charity for the sensitives through 
whose peculiar receptiveness to influences good or bad the 
wonders are wrought. 

The power of spirits to reproduce simulacra of persons who 
have passed from the earth-life suggests the question, How 
far can we be assured of the identity of any spirit, let the 



QUESTION OF IDENTITY. 45 

tests be what they may ? We have not yet arrived at that 
stage of enlightenment that would enable us to reply confi- 
dently to this inquiry. The John Kings and the Katie Kings 
who have come in the full form, and conversed with mortals, 
have not yet given proofs of their identity, that can be sub- 
stantiated by documentary evidence. In claiming to have 
been Sir Henry Morgan and a contemporary of Baleigh, John 
King does not give us such minute corroborative proofs as 
must be had before his declaration can be accepted. 

There is much that is yet a puzzle in the language and ac- 
tion of this class of materialized spirits. How far they are 
limited in their mental operations and in' their recollections 
by the act of materialization, or how far by the intellectual 
horizon of the medium, is still a question. In other cases, 
proofs of identity, both mental and physical, satisfactory to 
the recipients, have been given, as Mr. Hazard, Mrs. A. A. 
Andrews, and others from whom I have quoted, testify. 

It is satisfactory to discover that the further we proceed in 
investigation the more apparent does it become, that if there 
are deceptive, frivolous, immature spirits, there are also those 
who are sincere, intelligent, affectionate and earnest in their 
efforts to do good. The great majority, as in this world, are 
of the unintellectual sort. Perhaps the development of a 
spiritual sense in ourselves is needed before we can have a 
confirmation, that can be conclusive, of identity. Perhaps, 
under mortal and spiritual limitations as they now are, we 
can have only an approximate assurance. The science of 
Spiritualism being still in its infancy, we may hope for more 
light on this question. 

As for the Orthodox notion that "the devil is the only 
spirit authorized to communicate with the laity," and that all 
spiritual communications that do not come through certain 
prescribed channels are Satanic, this will hardly weigh with 
people of common sense engaged in a strictly scientific in- 
vestigation. 

"Nothing is so brutally conclusive asa/ac£," says Brous- 
sais ; and, therefore, facts must win in the long run. Tha 



46 TKT THE SPIKITS. 

truth itself, and not our mere conceptions of what ought to 
be true, must ultimately prevail. 

Meanwhile we see the significance of the caution to us to 
''try the spirits;" to try them not by conjuration through 
this or that name, however sacred, but by our reason, the pu- 
rification of our motives, and the singleness of our aspirations 
for the truth. 

Plainly it is not the proved law of our being, that we should 
surrender to any one, mortal or immortal, the custody of our 
individuality, our reason, and our self respect. Every earnest 
and rational spirit, whether in the flesh or out of it, at the 
same time that he has relations to the universe, and the uni- 
verse to him, would seem to be impelled by the environments, 
the restrictions, and the varied experiences to which he is 
subjected, and by the fallacies with which he soon finds that 
all human teachings and interpretations are mixed, to exer- 
cise his own reason, to discipline his own powers, and to de- 
velope his own individuality; end, while courting all good 
influences, to resist the dictation of those who would con- 
strain him, by aught else than appeals to his sense of right, 
to adopt their opinions or walk in their ways. 

11 Think as 1 do, or drink the hemlock," embodies in words 
the monster sin that is not confined to mortals or to ancient 
Athens. As there were spirits of old who would try to force 
a way for their authority by a " Thus saith the Lord," so there 
are spirits now who claim a divine infallibility when they can 
find dupes to heed them. 

Spiritualism enforces upon us the fact that in being loosen- 
ed by death from this exterior husk we call a body, the veri- 
table man is not greatly changed. With a corresponding organ- 
ism of subtler elements, he starts on his new career from the 
vantage-ground, low or high, which he has attained to here. 
Condition follows character ; and the spiritual environments 
which our prevailing thoughts and affections, our noblenesses 
or our meannesses, have created for us in this life, will impart 
their beauty or their deformity to our objective surroundings 
on our entrance into what is now to us the unseen world. 



ADDRESS BY JOHK KING. 47 



CHAPTER IV. 

The news of the manifestations through Mrs. Andrews, at 
Moravia, N. Y., was received by Spiritualists in England 
with some incredulity, accompanied by a wish to ascertain if 
similar phenomena could be had through their own mediums. 
Accordingly, several of these began to sit for spirit forms. 
The faces appeared at the seances of Mrs. Guppy, and subse- 
quently Messrs. Heme and Williams succeeded in obtaining 
these manifestations at dark circles, the spirits manufacturing 
a light of their own, which they held in their hands to show 
themselves by. 

Certain phenomena in the presence of Miss Florence Eliza 
Cook, a young lady of fifteen, daughter of a member of the 
Dalston Association of Inquirers into Spiritualism, began to 
attract attention in England the latter part of the year 1871. 
The spirits producing these manifestations claimed to be 
John and Katie King, and their daughter Katie ; but Morgan, 
they said, was their true earth- name ; and Katie, on several 
occasions, would sign herself, Katie King, properly Annie 
Morgan. 

At numerous seances in America, and at those of Heme 
and Williams, in England, spirits calling themselves John 
and Katie King have frequently manifested themselves. The 
name King would seem, for some reason, to be a favorite one 
among the class of spirits giving physical manifestations. 

"John King" used to make himself audible, at an early 
period, at the sittings of the Davenport Brothers j and, subse- 
quently, at those of Jonathan Koons, in Dover, Athens Co., 
Ohio, where he once made a long address, written by a spirit 
hand s apposed to be his own, in which he calls himself, a 
" servant and scholar of God," and says : " We know that our 
work will be rejected by many, and condemned as the pro- 
duction of their King Devil, whom they profess to repudiate, 



48 ME. WILLIAMS'S MEDIUMSHIP. 

but do so constantly serve by crucifying truth and rejecting 
all that is contrary to their own narrow pride and vain imag- 
inings." 

In manifesting himself through the English mediumo, John 
King claimed to be identical with this spirit, and it cannot be 
denied that a certain unity of speech and character has dis- 
tinguished him on these occasions. He asserted that his name 
on earth was Sir Henry Morgan, and that he was a contempo- 
rary of Sir Walter Raleigh. 

The 20th of March, 1873, at a sitting in London, of which 
full particulars are given by the well-known publisher, Mr. 
James Burns, in "Human Nature/' for April, 1873, the spirit 
claiming to be John King manifested himself in a material- 
ized form so successfully that a sketch was made of him by a 
skillful artist. The seance took place in the daylight, Charles 
E. Williams being the medium. This sitting was followed 
by another the next week (March 27th), when John King ap- 
peared visibly, as before, as solid and material as an ordinary 
human being, while the medium's hands were held by Mrs. 
Burns, and he sat entranced in his seat. 

On this last occasion the spirit spoke aloud, saying : " You 
won't doubt any more, will you ? It is God's truth, is it not? 
It is a glorious truth. God bless you ! It is. God bless you !" 
Having more than satisfied the sitters, he withdrew inside the 
cabinet, but returned to the aperture to renew the colloquy. 
While Mrs. Burns dragged the medium's hands through the 
door of the cabinet into full view, John King also showed his 
at the window : the test was complete. 

Of the sincerity and intelligence of Mrs. Burns, no one who 
has made her acquaintance, as I have, can doubt. 

The genuineness of the mediumship of Mr. Williams has 
been tested by Prince Wittgenstein and others, who have sat- 
isfied themselves of the objective appearance of "John King" 
and his wonderful lamp. Even Serjeant Cox admits that he 
has found Mr. Williams "most trustworthy." On the 14th 
of May, 1874, at a seance held at the house of Mr. Chinnery, 
in Paris, 52 Rue de Rome, when John King with his lamp 



STRANGE PROCEEDINGS. 49 

was seen, a young man rushed forward to seize the spirit. 
The latter eluded his grasp, leaving behind only a small por- 
tion of the drapery which covered the form. A light wa?< 
struck, and the medium was found entranced in his chair. 
He was searched, but nothing in the slightest degree suspi- 
cious was discovered. What had become of the drapery ? The 
integrity of Mr. Williams was fully vindicated. 

At some experiments at Mr. Cook's house, April 21st, 1872, 
of which Mr. W. H. Harrison, editor of the London Spiritu- 
alist, has given an account, a dark seance for the voices was 
held, Miss Cook and Mr. Heme being the mediums. The fol- 
lowing remarkable incident occurred : A tapping was heard 
upon one of the window panes ; the bar of the shutter was 
unlocked and taken down, and the shutter opened, and John 
King's voice said : "Cook, you must take that plug out of 
the gutter, if you do n't want the foundations of your house 
sapped. The gutter is stopped up." On examination this 
proved to be true. It had been raining, and the area was full 
of water. Nobody inside the house knew of this until told in 
this remarkable way. 

" Strangely human all this!" you will say; "so strangely 
human, that we think there must have been a human person- 
ator of the spirit ! " But, as I shall have stranger things 
than this to relate by and by, I will only pause to remark 
that the incident is in full harmony with occurrences the con- 
firmation of which, under test conditions, is ample. 

We now approach the early manifestations through Miss 
Cook, in whose presence the phenomena eventually became 
so marked. On the 22d of April, 1872, a seance was held at 
which Mrs. Cook, the children, and the servant were wit- 
nesses. In the endeavor to abolish dark seances, Mr. Harri- 
son had made experiments with different kinds of light. 
He had tried, at Mr. Cook's house, a phosphorescent light, 
made by coating the inside of a warm bottle with phosphorus 
dissolved in oil of cloves, and then letting in the air. 

The oil was left at Mr. Cook's, as will be learnt by the fol- 
lowing passage from a letter from Miss Cook herself to Mr. 
4 



60 LETTER FROM MISS COOK. 

Harrison, under date of April 23d, 1872. I quote the passage 
because it is interesting as giving us some notion of the intel- 
lectual calibre of the writer, Miss Cook, who was soon to be- 
come so famous as a medium : 

" Yesterday afternoon Katie told us that if we liked to put 
up a cabinet of curtains for her, she would try to show us 
something, but as I was not developed enough for her to take 
enough phosphorus from me to show her face by, we were to 
give her some of your phosphoric oil, I was delighted, and 
at half-past eight yesterday evening all was ready. Mamma, 
auntie, the children, and the servant stood on the stairs. I 
was left alone (not in my glory, for \ was very frightened) 
inside the breakfast-room. Katie began by giving mamma 
some fresh ivy leaves ; none were in our house or garden of 
the size she brought. A hand and arm with a white sleeve 
came to the opening holding the bottle of oil ; then, at the 
lower opening in the curtain, came a face, unveiled, the head 
covered with a quantity of pure white drapery. Katie held 
the bottle to her face so that all outside could see her plainly. 
She remained for quite two minutes. It was an oval face, 
straight nose, bright eyes, and a very pretty mouth. She 
again came to the opening, her lips moved, and at last she 
spoke. All outside could see her lips moving ; she talked 
with mamma some few minutes. I could not see her face 
plainly, so asked her to turn and show me. She said, 'Of 
course I will,' came to my chair and bent over me. She was 
materialized only to the bust. From there she went into a 
cloud, slightly luminous. She told mamma to look at her 
carefully, and made the observation that ' she knew she 
looked most unearthly.* It was indeed very startling. I was 
too frightened to move or call out when she came near me. 
She used no tubes for speaking. The last time she appeared 
she stayed quite five minutes, and directed mamma to send to 
you, asking you if you could come here one day this week. . . . 
Katie King finished her seance with ■ God bless you all. I am 
so pleased to show myself.' " 

On the occasion here referred to by Miss Cook, the face of 
Katie King was described by Mrs. Cook, as " looking white 
and deathlike, while her eyes were fixed and staring, as if 
made of glass." 

At a seance at Mr. Cook's, April 25th, 1872, Katie made 
several efforts to materialize a form. Mr. W. H. Harrison 
was present. He has given a curious description of some of 
the performances. The medium, Miss Cook, sat in a dark 
room. A scraping noise was heard ; Katie had some spirit 
drapery in her hand, which she rubbed down over the medium 
to collect some of the "influence" used by spirits in materi- 



KATIE AND HEK MEDIUM. 51 

alization. A conversation, in low tones, varied with an occa- 
sional scraping noise, then took place between Florence Cook 
and the spirit : 

Miss Cook— Go away, Katie; I do n't like to be scraped. 

Katie— Do n't be stupid. Take that thing off your head and look at me. 
{Scrape, scrape.) 

Miss Cook— I won't. Go away, Katie; I do n't like you. You frighten 
me. 

Katie— Do n't be silly. {Scrape, scrape, scrape.) 

Miss Cook— I won't sit for these manifestations. 1 do n't like them. 
Go away. 

Katie— You are only my medium, and a medium is nothing but a ma- 
chine. {Scrape, scrape.) 

Miss Cook— Well, if I am only a machine, I do n't like to be frightened. 
Go away. 

Katie— Do n't be stupid. 

Miss Cook, who as yet had not been entranced by the spirit, 
said that the spirit's head and shoulders were materialized ; 
but below, her form melted into thin air. Katie would be 
sometimes high up and sometimes low down, so that the bust 
nearly touched the floor, in which position she looked "most 
unearthly." It sometimes appeared as if a head were " wan- 
dering about with no legs or body, visible or invisible." 

At the next sitting Miss Cook was entranced by the spirit, 
and a little benzoline lamp was used for seeing the material- 
ization. The spirit would cry out "higher," or " lower," as 
she wanted the light adjusted. Mr. Harrison gives the fol- 
lowing interesting account of what occurred : 

" Katie's face came out, all the rest of the head being ban- 
daged round with white, 'in order,' she said, 'to keep the 
power by which she materialized herself from passing away 
too quickly.' She said that only her face and not all her head 
was materialized. This time all present had a good look at 
her, and saw her features. It was remarked that her eyes 
were closed. Each time the face came out for, perhaps, half 
a minute. Afterwards she said, 'Willie, see me smile,' and, 
again, 'see me talk,' suiting the action to the word. Then 
she said, 'Now, Cook, turn on the light.' 

"The light was turned fully up, sending a bright glare 
upon the face for an instant, and for the first time Katie King 
was clearly seen. She had a young, pretty, happy face, and 
sparkling eyes, with some little mischief in them. It was not 
ghastly, as when Mrs. Cook and family saw it, on April 22d, 
'because,' said Katie, ' I know now how to do it better.' 

"When her face in its natural colors was seen in full 
light, nearly all the observers said, ' We can see you all right 
now, Katie.' 'Well, then,' said, she, 'clapl' Accordingly, 



52 KATIE AND HER MEDIUM. 

there was a shower of applause, in which Katie joined by 
thrusting out her arm and hand, holding a fan taken from the 
mantelpiece ; with the fan she began to gleefully beat the 
wall outside the door, and to ring the bells hanging above the 
door. 

" During the interval of one hour for supper, Mr. Thomas 
Blyton came in, and he was present at the next sitting. Katie 
showed herself as before. Once she said, 'Put out the light, 
and strike a match when I call/ This was done, and at~the 
moment of the striking of the match, her face was again seen 
for an instant in a full light. She showed her face a second 
time in the same way. Once she said, ' Cook, don't gaze at me 
too fixedly ; it hurts me.' On another occasion she said, ' The 
light hurts me ; it makes me feel tired.' All along she was 
very careful in adjusting the amount of light, and the dis- 
tance of the sitters from the curtains. Xow and then she 
said, 'Sing, sing, all of you.' Singing evidently helped her 
as much as at an ordinary seance. 

"She threw out about a yard of white fabric, but kept hold 
of it by the other end, saying, 'Look, this is spirit drapery.' 
I said, ' Drop it into the passage, Katie, and let us see it melt 
away; or let us cut apieceotf.' She replied, 'I can't; but 
look here !' She then drew back her hand, which was above 
the top of the curtain, and, as the spirit drapery touched the 
curtain, it passed right through, just as if there were no resist- 
ance whatever. 

"She then threw it out again, and again the yard of 
drapery passed through the curtain. It was a clear case of 
something which looked like solid matter passing through 
solid matter, and we all saw it. I think that at first there 
was friction between the two fabrics, and that they rustled 
against each other ; but that when she said ' Look here !' some 
quality which made the drapery common matter was with- 
drawn from it, and at once it passed through the common 
matter of the curtain, without experiencing any resistance." 

Mr. Blyton, in a published communication, confirms all that 
is reported as occurring in his presence, by Mr. Harrison. 
"At times, when speaking," says Mr. Blyton, " Katie's fea- 
tures were very natural and human. On our requesting to 
see a piece of the white drapery, the spirit held out a strip 
from the opening, resembling muslin in appearance. On her 
withdrawing her arm and hand, this white spirit drapery dis- 
appeared through the curtain. This passing of the drapery 
through the curtain was repeated several times." 

As Miss Cook's mediumship grew in power, she was placed 
above the temptation of exercising it for gain. Mr. Charles 
Blackburn, of Manchester, with a. wise liberality, and in the 
cause of science, supplied the means for this. 



KATIE WALKS FORTH. 53 

For a long time only a feeble light was permitted at the 
manifestations of spirit forms. The face of the spirit would 
be covered with white drapery, the chief use of which was 
said to be to economize the power by enabling the spirit to 
leave part of the head unmaterialized. 

As the developments went on, Katie began to exhibit not 
only the whole of her bare face, but her hands and arms, in a 
strong light. In these early stages, Miss Cook was almost al- 
ways awake during the manifestations ; but sometimes, when 
the weather was bad, or other conditions were unfavorable, 
Katie would entrance her, the purpose of which was simply 
to increase the power, and to prevent the mental activity of 
the medium from operating as an interference. After a time 
Katie never appeared without the medium being in a trance. 

Some sittings for recognizable faces were had in the pres- 
ence of Miss Cook ; but they began, as did Katie's manifesta- 
tion, in a weak light, and were imperfect. They were aban- 
doned, therefore, for the more marked phenomenon in which a 
certain success had been won. Two instances, however, in 
which recognizable faces were presented through Miss 
Cook's mediumship, occurred, and seem to have been well 
authenticated. 

At a sitting at Hackney, Jan. 20th, 1873, Katie changed 
her face from white to black in a few seconds, several times ; 
and to show that her hands were not mechanically moved, 
she sewed up a hole in the curtain. On the 12th of March, 
at Hackney, Miss Cook's hands being tied and sealed, Ka- 
tie, with her hands perfectly free, walked out of the cabinet. 
A month or two later, several photographs were taken of 
Katie, under strictly test conditions, and by the magnesium 
light* 

Thus it was not till after many imperfect trials and partial 
materializations, accompanied with very gradual develop- 
ments of increasing force, that the spirit Katie, in the full 
human form, and habited in white, as represented in her 

♦An account of these sittings, by Mr. J. C. Luxmoore. Justice of the 
Peace for the County of Devon, may be found in the London Spiritualist 
of May 15th, 1873. 



54 DR. GULLY'S TESTIMONY. 

photographs, came forth in the light from the cabinet, and 
walked about the room before a semi-circle of spectators. 

Dr. J. M. Gully, formerly of Great Malvern, England, a 
thoroughly experienced physician and a careful investigator, 
under date of July 20th, 1874, writes me as follows : 

" To the special question which you put regarding my ex- 
periences of the materialization of the spirit-form, with Miss 
Cook's mediumship, I must reply that, after two years* ex- 
amination of the fact and numerous seances, I have not the 
smallest doubt, and have the strongest conviction, that such 
materialization takes place, and that not the slightest at- 
tempt at trick or deception is fairly attributable to any one 
who assisted at Miss Cook's seances. 

"That the power grows with use was curiously illustrated 
by the fact that, for some time, only a face was producible, 
with, occasionally, arms and hands ; with no hair, and some- 
times with no back to the skull at all— merely a mask, with 
movement, however, of eyes and mouth. Gradually the whole 
form appeared— after, perhaps, some five months of seances — 
once or twice a week. This again became more and more 
rapidly formed, and changed, in hair, dress, and color of face, 
as we desired. 

" The voice came long before the whole form of the body, 
but was always husky, and as if there was a whispering ca- 
tarrh ; save when she joined us in singing, when she gave out 
a most lovely contralto. 

11 The feel of the skin was quite natural, soft and warm ; 
her movements were natural and graceful, except when she 
stooped to pick up anything from the floor, when it seemed 
as if her legs as well as her trunk bent backwards. 

" When that photograph* was taken, I held her hand for at 
least two minutes, three several times, for we sat three times 
for it on one and the same evening ; but I was constrained to 
close my eyes by reason of the intense magnesium light 
which shone directly upon me ; moreover she desired that 



* The well-known published photograph, in which Katie is represented 
Itanuing with Dr. Gully sitting at her side and holding her hand. 



DR. GULLY'S TESTIMOOT. 51 

none of us would gaze at her whilst the lens was directed up- 
on her. 

" I believe that much information might have been obtained 
from her concerning the outre-tombe, but the circle seemed al- 
ways bent on talking chaff to her, complimenting her, and in- 
dulging in ordinary inconsequential conversation ; for only 
on one or two occasions was I (who hate all the nonsense 
that was said to and by her) able to put a few questions on 
the subjects about which every thoughtful Spiritualist is nat- 
urally anxious. 

" It may be questioned whether these spirit beings can con- 
vey anything like an accurate idea of their state and powers ; 
but I believe that, just as their power of physical manifesta- 
tion augments with use, so would their power of mental com- 
munication increase were an intelligent curiosity always pre- 
sented for their sympathetic reply. In fact, I believe that if 
less idle and more serious curiosity was felt by the circles, 
spirits of a higher and more powerful character would sym- 
pathetically come and teach by vocal words, written words, 
inspired words. 

"So soon as a man has convinced himself of the reality of 
the spirit-presence, and the absence of all deception, he 
should, I think, use all his will power to place his own spirit 
in a state of reception for spirit knowledge, and feel assured 
he will get it. Physical manifestations are the alphabet of 
the subject, and if Spiritualism went no further it would do 
but little for humanity. 

"But I quite believe in your suggestion, that, carried out 
to its consequences in thought and sympathy, it is destined to 
abolish a thick cloud of darkness which at present renders all 
religions more or less superstitious, and all philosophy a mere 
circle; and to substitute a light which will enable the mind in 
a body to hold communion with minds whose freedom enables 
them to see the workings of Great Cause and Great Effect, 
and so to bring forth a philosophic religion ; whilst philoso- 
phy itself will be able to look ever onwards instead of going 
round and round, as it has done from Plato to Mill, tedious 
to study, and barren of result.' ' 



56 ME. COLEMAN'S TESTIMONY. 

Similar materializations to those through Miss Cook had 
taken place not unfrequently in America, at seances where 
the light was very dim. Mr. Home, Mrs. Mary Hardy, 
Messrs. Bastian and Taylor, Mrs. Maud Lord, Mrs. Jennie 
Lord Webb, and others had, while sitting in the dark or in 
twilight, satisfied many of the presence of materialized spirits, 
who made themselves felt and heard, if they could not be dis- 
tinctly seen. The materializations through Miss Kate Fox 
had satisfied Mr. Livermore, Dr. Gray, and Mr. Groute of the 
objective reality of the appearing forms. 

But the bold and startling manifestations through Miss 
Cook, occurring in the light, and in the presence of a dozen 
or more spectators, were peculiarly impressive and satisfac- 
tory ; and I give prominence to her case on this account. The 
manifestations, after the initiatory experiments had been 
made, were conducted under strict test conditions, and in the 
presence of persons of well-known character and intelligence, 
whose single object was the establishment of the truth ; the 
apparition, being visible under the most powerful light, and 
solid to the touch, could be subjected to tests which were 
eventually supplied by scientific men and found satisfactory ; 
and the medium, being exempted from all necessity of asking 
pay from the investigators, was comparatively independent 
and free in allowing the manifestations to take their course. 

At a sitting at Mr. Luxmoore's, Nov. 18th, 1873, a witness, 
well known to me personally, Mr. Benjamin Coleman, was 
present, and from his account I have abridged the following : 

The seance was given in the large drawing-room, in which 
an ordinary fire was kept burning throughout the evening. 
The small drawing-room, separated by sliding doors, was ap- 
propriated as a cabinet, and a dark curtain was hung between 
the open parts, by which all light was excluded. A lamp was 
placed on the table of the audience room, where there was a 
fire, and at no time was it dark. The fourteen ladies and 
gentlemen, who formed a horse-shoe circle in front of the cab- 
inet, could see each other the whole evening. 

A low chair was placed in the cabinet, upon which Miss 



MR. COLEMAN'S TESTIMONY. ffi 

Cook, the medium, was seated-, and Mr. Coleman and Mr. 
Blackburn were invited by Mr. Luxmoore to see hei secured. 
Her hands were tied together with tape, the ends of which 
were sewn and sealed with wax ; and then the tape was 
passed around her waist, and tightly knotted and sewn^ and 
sealed again. The tape was then passed through a staple in 
the floor, leaving a slack of about a foot, and there knotted 
again. Thus it was impossible for Miss Cook to move from 
her seat more than a few inches. 

The ties were all found secure, and the line of tape undis- 
turbed, after the seance ; and even had this precaution not 
been taken, the fact that, the instant Katie disappeared, the 
medium was found tied and differently clad, and asleep in her 
chair, would have satisfied any reasonable person that there 
was no trick or attempt to deceive. Whatever the figure of 
Katie might be, it evidently was not Miss Cook. 

The figure of Katie entered the room. She was clad in 
a loose white dress, tied in at the waist, having long sleeves 
terminating at the wrists, with a close hood on her head, long 
lappets hanging over her shoulders, and her hair closely 
banded. 

She at once saluted each of the company in turn, first ask- 
ing the name of the only stranger unknown to the medium. 
Mr. Coleman asked Katie if she had shoes and stockings on. 
She said, "No," and at once drew aside her dress, and show- 
ed that her feet were naked ; and to satisfy all, she raised one 
foot on to the dress of Mrs. Corner, in the most natural man- 
ner, and said, " Now you can all see that I have bare feet, 
can't you ? " 

There were pencils and sheets of writing paper on the ta- 
ble, and Mr. Coleman asked her if she would be good enough 
to write something for him. " Yes, I will," she said, taking 
a chair, and sitting down on it. " What shall I write ? " Mr. 
Coleman said he was engaged in getting up a testimonial to 
Judge Edmonds, and perhaps she might have something to 
say to him. 

Upon this Katie raised one knee, and commenced writing ; 



58 PRINCE EMILE'S TESTIMONY. 

but, finding the position uncomfortable, asked for something 
hard "to rest the paper upon. ,, This being supplied, she 
wrote off the following letter : — 

• ■ My Dear Friend— You have asked me to write a few words to you. 
I wish you every success with regard to Judge Edmonds's testimonial. 
He is a good mau, and an earnest worker. Give him my affectionate 
greeting. I know him well, although he does not know me. My power 
is going, so with every good wish, 

44 1 am your sincere friend, Katie King, 

"Properly Annie Morgan. 11 

The letter was handed back to Mr. Coleman, who read it 
aloud, and then said to her, "I see you have not addressed 
it ;" she took it back and deliberately folded it upon her knee, 
and wrote on the back, "Mr. Coleman." 

On his requesting her to let him feel the texture of her 
dress, she replied by coming round past the back of Mr. Lux- 
moore's chair sideways, as there was barely room to pass, and 
holding up the dress to Mr. C; he took it with both hands, 
and pulled it, and it was to all appearance, in substance, as if 
it were made of strong white calico. She then passed round 
the circle and shook hands, by gently touching the hands of 
each. Both her hands and her face throughout the seance 
were of a perfectly natural color, the reverse of pallid ; her 
cheeks were red, and hands decidedly so ; in fact, her whole 
appearance was that of a gentle and graceful young woman. 
She stooped down to pick up two sheets of paper which were 
in her way whilst crossing the room, and stepped aside to lay 
them on the table. 

"This completed, ,, writes Mr. Coleman, "the impression, 
which all must have felt, that we had been for an hour and a 
half holding intercourse with an intelligent living woman, 
who glided, rather than walked about, and who showed by 
iier constant watchfulness of the medium, that there was the 
tie to which she was bound. It was altogether a marvelous 
exhibition." 

Prince Emile of Sayn Wittgenstein, who was present at a 
seance at Mr. Luxmoore's, December 16th, 1873, published in 
the Revue Spirite, of Paris, an account of it, which was trans- 



PRINCE EMILE'S TESTIMONY. 59 

lated by Dr. G-. L. Ditson, from whose version I quote most 
of the following : 

" The gauze curtain of the cabinet was agitated, and a 
naked arm was thrust forth and made a sign. Then the right 
side of the hanging was opened, giving us a view of an appa- 
rition of ravishing beauty. She stood erect ; the right arm 
was across her breast, the other fell at her side, holding the 
curtain. She seemed to review the persons present. It was 
the spirit of Katie, a thousand times more lovely than her 
photograph. 

"I had before me a young lady of an ideal beauty, supple, 
elegant, and clad in most graceful drapery, with chestnut 
locks visible through her white veil. Her robe, trailing like 
that of an antique statue, entirely covered her naked feet. 
Her arms, of surpassing beauty, delicate, white, were visible 
to the shoulders. Their attachment to the body was finely 
statuesque ; and the hands, a little large, had long, tapering 
fingers, rosy to the ends. 

"Her face was pale and rather round than oval. Her 
mouth, smiling, shewed beautiful teeth. Her nose was aqui- 
line ; her eyes were very large and blue, almond-shaped, 
shaded by long, heavy eyelashes, and having eyebrows deli- 
cately arched. And, to conclude, there was in this apparition 
the grace of a Psyche descended from her pedestal. 

•Yet this rare feminine embodiment, this faithful repro- 
duction of one many years dead, was soon to evaporate and 
di-appear like a breath ! One might mistake her, seen from 
a distance, for Miss Cook ; but the apparition was large, with 
slender waist, while Miss Cook, though pretty, is much small- 
er, and her hands are not as large as Katie's. There could be 
no mistake : they were two distinct personalities. 

'•The apparition seemed to regard me with curiosity, and I 
saw in her something that reminded me of a spectre, and that 
was the eye. It was as beautiful as possible, yet it had a 
haggard, fixed, glassy expression ; but in spite of that, with 
mouth smiling, with bosom heaving, she seemed to say, ■ I am 
happy to be a moment among mortals/ She then remarked, 
in a sort of tremulous whisper, but with infinite grace, ' I can- 
not yet go far away from my medium, but soon I shall have 
more force.' When she was not fully understood, she repeat- 
ed her words with infantile impatience. 

" I asked to be favored with a sight of her foot ; she grace- 
fully raised her robe to comply with my request, and, when 
being solicited to show more of it, the robe was lifted to the 
ankle, and I saw a delicate foot, like that of an antique 
statue, white, plump, lovely as a child's, high and arched, the 
toes finely attached, and of a purity of design irreproachable ; 
but all this ensemble was as if of bne piece, and the real life 
was wanting. 

" Katie King talked, laughed, chatted pleasantly with those 
present, calling each one by name with a roguish, iufantile, 
defiant vivacity ; gesticulating with her right hand as do the 
women of the Orient, with the movement of the fingers and 
curvature of the hand peculiar to that people ; accenting her 



60 DR. SEXTON'S TESTIMONY. 

words with the most gracious movement of her head ; often 
with gentle modesty gathering her veil about her neck ; in a 
word, in everything, in her features, form, costume, gestures, 
giving an impression of the women of the Levant that could 
not be mistaken. 

" A man of little intelligence, who was present, having ad- 
dressed some rude words to Katie, she crumpled some paper in 
her hand, and threw it at him with an expression of disdain.'* 

As an evidence of the spirit's clairvoyant powers, Prince 

VTittsgenstein sends the following to the London Spiritualist 

of July 10th, 1874, in a letter from Nieder Walluf, on the 

Rhine : 

" A very striking fact, in direct writing, was recently ob- 
tained by Miss Cook, at my request, putting my sealed letter 
at night on her dressing table, with some pencils and sheets 
of paper near it. The letter, closely sealed by me, was fur- 
ther put into a second envelope by Mr. William Crookes, who 
also sealed it several times with his private signet. 

11 When it was sent back to me with Katie's answer, his 
seals, as well as mine, were quite intact. 

" Katie copied the contents of my sealed letter to her, word 
for word, without a mistake or omission, on a separate sheet 
of paper. She also wrote an answer to me, with the follow- 
ing postscript : 

*" *I have given a copy of your letter, dear friend, to show you I have 
really read it. I must trust to your good nature to excuse any errors, as I 
have never done anything like this before.— A. Morgan, or Katie King."' M 

Dr. George Sexton was for many years one of the most 
earnest of the secularist teachers, and an energetic lecturer 
against Spiritualism and all other forms of belief in a future 
life. After fifteen years of skepticism, during which, how- 
ever, he did not disdain to investigate, the needful evidence 
came. In his own house, in the absence of all mediums other 
than those members of his own family and intimate private 
friends in whom mediumistic powers became developed, he 
got evidence of an irresistible character that the communica- 
tions came from deceased friends and relatives. 

Dr. Sexton's first atter dance on the manifestation through 
Miss Cook, took place at Mr. Luxmoore's, Nov. 25th, 1873. 
The usual precautions for the satisfaction of skeptics were 
taken. Tied as she was, it seemed to him impossible for Miss 
Cook to remove from her seat more than a few inches. We 
quote the concluding portion of his testimony : 

" The seance commenced, as is usual, with singing. The 



DR. SEXTON'S TESTIMONY. 61 

lights were turned down, but not so low as to prevent our see- 
ing each other most distinctly, and being eye-witnesses of all 
that was taking place in the room. The medium speedily be- 
came partially entranced, hands were shown at a small aperture 
at the top of the cabinet, and Katie gave indications of being 
present. Soon after, the curtain was moved aside, and the 
full form of the spirit, dressed in white, was distinctly seen 
by all present. 

"Katie requested me to ask her questions, which I did con- 
tinually for at least half an hour. These questions were 
mostly of a semi-philosophic character, having reference 
mainly to the laws and conditions under which spirits assume 
materialized forms, and such, therefore, as it is very question- 
able whether a young lady like the medium would have been 
able to answer. They were all replied to so satisfactorily 
that more than one well-known and highly-educated Spirit- 
ualist present stated that they had obtained information 
which they had previously often wished for, but could not 
procure. 

" The spirit form came out of the cabinet several times dur- 
ing the evening, and walked about amongst the audience. 
She showed her feet, which were perfectly naked, and stamped 
them on the floor to prove that she was not standing on tip- 
toe, this latter fact being a very important one, seeing that 
she was at least four inches taller than Miss Cook. Her fig- 
ure and complexion were almost totally unlike those of the 
medium. She came across the room to me, patted me on the 
head, and returned. I then asked her if she would kiss 
me. She replied she would try to do so. In a few minutes 
she again crossed over to me, and kissed me on the forehead 
three or four times. I may here remark that although the 
sound of the kisses were distinctly heard by all present, and 
the attitude of the figure seen, I felt no pressure of the lips 
whatever. 

" Toward the end of the seance the spirit requested me to 
examine the cabinet to see that the medium was still fastened 
in her chair. Mr. Luxmoore lifted the curtain, and said, 'She 
is still there, lying down in the corner.' The curtain was 
then dropped again, and I, being on the opposite side of the 
room, had, of course, not seen into the cabinet. The spirit 
immediately inquired, 'Did Dr. Sexton see that?' I replied, 
'No, I did not.' 'Then,' she said, 'come and look; I want 
you to see.' 

" I at once crossed over to the cabinet, raised the curtain, 
and looked in. There I saw Miss Cook, sitting, or rather ly- 
ing, in a trance on the chair in which she had been fastened, 
knots, seals, and all intact. The seance continued for some- 
thing over an hour. I may remark that the spirit in the course 
of the evening wrote several short notes to persons present. 
The following was the substance of the one given to me : 

4 My Dear De. Sexton— I am pleased you have asked me questions. 

* Yours, truly, Annie Moegan.' 

" Thus ended one of the most marvelous seances at which 
it has ever been my good fortune to be present." 



62 DR. GULLY'S TESTIMONY. 

Dr. J. M. Gully, from whose letter to myself I have al- 
ready given an extract, was for many years at the head of 
the well-known water-cure establishment at Great Malvern, 
England, and is known to thousands of Americans as a skill- 
ful and scientific physician and a thoroughly estimable gen- 
tleman. He satisfied himself of the genuineness of the niani 
testations through Mr. Home, several years ago. The 28th 
of November, 1873, he was present at Mr. Luxmoore's, at one 
of Miss Cook's seances, of which he gives the following ac- 
count : 

"The spirit, Katie King, appeared this time dressed in a 
longer and more flowing white dress than usual, the sleeves 
reaching to the wrists and bound there, whilst over her head 
and face a beautifully transparent veil fell, giving to the 
whole figure an appearance of grace and purity which is not 
easily conveyed by words. 

11 The spirit greeted every one in the circle by name ; then 
retired into the dark room, where she was heard moving 
heavy furniture about, and talking to the medium who was 
sealed and bound as usual. Sho then brought a large bowl 
into the circle and gave it to the hands of a sitter. After- 
wards she brought a low chair, or prie-dieu, out of the dark 
room, and placed it wholly in the circle, sat down upon it, 
and desired that the sitters should sing, but not loudly, as 
she would try to join them, which she did with the clear con- 
tralto voice which she has several times exhibited. It is im- 
possible to convey the impression of that voice issuing from 
an inhabitant of tin 1 outretombe 1 

She then begged that all would join hands in order that she 
might get all the possible power for what she wished to do, 
and whilst we, the sitters, did so, she retired for a minute or 
two to get fresh power from her medium, returned, and then 
deliberately w r alked around the entire circle (composed of 
fourteen persons) and touched each one in turn, some of the 
ladies on the cheek, the men on the hands ; one man she told 
to put out his hand and she would show him that she could 
press it, which .she did. The circle occupied a great portion 
of a large-sized drawing-room. She then desired to be ques- 
tioned, and something like this colloquy took place : 

*' ' Is it possible for you to explain to us what are the pow- 
ers or forces you employ in materializing and dissolving your 
form ?' * No, it is not.* ' Is it electricity, or does it bear any 
resemblance to it?' i No ; it is all nonsense what th<ytalk 
about electricity.' ' But have you no name or mode of convey- 
ing it?' ' It is more like will-power than anything else; in 
fact, it is the will which is at the bottom of the power I exercise.* 
1 When you disappear where is it to ?' ' Into the medium, giv- 
ing her back all the vitality 1 took from her. When I have got 
very much power from her, if any one of you were to take her 
suddenly round the waist and try to carry her, you might kill 



THE FACTS TOO MARVELOUS. 63 

her on the spot : she might suffocate. 1 can go in and out of her 
readily, but, understand, I am not her — not her double; they 
talk a deal of rubbish about doubles; I am myself all the time.* 
' When you dissolve, which part disappears the first, the body 
or the dress ?' ' The body, of course ; its material power goes 
back to her, and then the dress goes into its elements.' ' Do you 
think one in the flesh can ever appreciate the powers you use 
in manifesting ?' ' No; you never can.' ( You speak of being 
yourself, and not a double of the medium— who were you 
when in the flesh ?' ' I to as Annie Morgan.' ' Were you mar- 
ried ?' ' Yes; but do n't talk of that.' (At this she retired be- 
hind the curtain, apparently either hurt or grieved at the 
question, a state she has exhibited before when questioned 
about her married life.) She speedily returned, and was 
asked, ' Have you a husband now?' ' Of course I hare.' 'Can 
you give us any idea under what reign you lived?' ' I left 
the body when I was twenty-one years old, and I lived in the 
latter part of the reign of Charles L, during the Commonwealth, 
and to the early part of the reign of Charles II. I remember 
the high peaked hats of the Commonioealth and the broad hats of 
Charles I. and II.; the short hair of the men, but Cromwell's 
was not short.' " 

" At this point the time which had been agreed on as the 
utmost that could be given, having the health of the medium 
in regard, was reached, and, although the spirit expressed a 
desire to remain longer, she retired on Mr. Luxmoore's insist- 
ing on it, and the seance terminated. 

"It is not always, nor even often, that the spirit Katie is 
in the humor to give us information of her present and past 
history, such as the above, and it has occurred to me that she 
declines it because she has been accustomed — too much, in my 
opinion — to jokes, and what might be called ' chaffing ' from 
the circle, and this probably is more to the taste of a spirit 
who, as she has herself stated, is not by any means in a high- 
ly spiritual sphere. But this may be mere speculation on my 
part." 

Notwithstanding the confidence of these and many other 
intelligent parties in the genuineness of the manifestations 
through Miss Cook, the phenomena were so extraordinary 
that doubt, even among confirmed Spiritualists, would fre- 
quently be excited. That a spirit, palpably materialized or 
reincarnated, could come into the presence of mortals, that 
she should be undistinguishable in appearance from a human 
being, that she should allow herself to be touched, write let- 
ters before the spectators, converse fluently and audibly, and, 
in fact, show all the traits of an average and somewhat petu- 
lant young woman, and then disappear at once, on reentering 
the cabinet, naturally awakened an amazement akin to dis- 
trust. 



64 SEIZURE OF THE SPIRIT-FORM. 

Although the faces of Miss Cook and Katie were much 
alike, it was found, on close examination, that there were 
marked differences, varying in degree at different times. 
The hair of the two was decidedly unlike ; that of Miss Cook 
being dark, and that of the spirit of a light auhurn or brown. 
That the hair of the latter was not false was proved by trac- 
ing it back to the scalp. This was done by Prof. Crookes, 
and also by Mrs. Florence Marryat Ross-Church. Specimens 
of the spirit hair have been subjected to the microscope, and 
found to be genuine hair, though rather coarse for a woman. 
The spirit-form was repeatedly measured and found to be, in 
its bare feet, taller by from two to four inches than Miss 
Cook. Other points of difference were noticed ; but it is un- 
necessary to dwell upon them here, inasmuch as the distinct- 
ive individuality of Miss Cook and Katie was subsequently 
proved by irresistible tests. 

Mr. Coleman suggested the theory that Katie was the double, 
or, as the Germans call it, the doppLlgangcr, of the medium ; 
but he was soon led by Professor Crookes's decisive experi- 
ments to abandon the idea. 

While even among Spiritualists the element of skepticism 
was thus at work, an incident occurred at a seance at Mr. 
Luxmoore's, December 9th, 1874, which seemed to be, for the 
moment, a triumph of the skeptics. In violation of the condi- 
tions of the seance, Mr. Volckman rose from his seat and at- 
tempted to seize the supposed spirit. She glided from his 
grasp, however, and Miss Cook was soon afterwards found 
tied as she had been left. 

This occurrence served only to confirm belief in the genu- 
ineness of the phenomena, for it drew forth testimonials from 
many in behalf of the reliability of the medium. Mr. Henry 
Dunphy, a barrister, and well known man of letters, who 
was present at the attempt, published in the February num- 
ber of London Society (1874) an account, from which we 
quote the following : 

" I was seated between Lady Caithness and Mr. Blackburn, 
holding a hand of each. The apparition appeared several 
times and came out into the centre of the room. It was ar- 



ME. TAPP'S TESTIMONY. t>5 

rayed in a long white dress with a double skirt, had naked feet, 
and wore a veil over the head and falling clown below the 
waist. Count de Pomar asked whether he might approach it ; 
and, having obtained permission, left the circle and walked 
straignt up to it. Katie held out her hand, which he took, 
and subsequently returned to his seat. 

" The apparition then advanced to the portion of the room 
farthest from the cabinet, when a person, who to me was a 
perfect stranger, jumped up, caught the figure round the 
waist, and held it, exclaiming 'It is the medium!' Two or 
three gentlemen present rushed forward and caught him, and 
a struggle ensued. I watched the result with considerable in- 
terest, and observed that the figure appeared to lose its feet 
and legs, and to elude the grasp, making for that purpose a 
movement somewhat similar to that of a seal in the water. 
Although the person who made the attempt was apparently 
well able to hold on to anything he might happen to clutch, the 
apparition glided out of his grip, leaving no trace of corporeal 
existence, or surroundings in the shape of clothing." 

Mr. George Henry Tapp, of the Dalston Association of In- 
quirers, added his testimony to that of others on this occasion, 
and threw light on some mooted questions. He says that the 
points of difference between Katie and the medium were often 
remarkable, not only in regard to features, but as regards 
height, bulk, &c. The resemblance between the two was at 
times hardly perceptible. When he first saw the full form of 
Katie she stood five feet six inches high, with her naked feet 
flat on the floor. She was stout and broad across the waist 
and shoulders, quite a contrast to her medium, who was much 
shorter and petite in person. 

Katie has frequently stood by Mr. Tapp, and leaned against 
him at seances for several minutes together, permitting him 
to thoroughly scan her face and figure in a good light. Once 
she laid her right arm in his outstretched hands, and allowed 
him to examine it closely. It was plump and shapely, longer 
than that of the medium. The hands, too, were much larger, 
with beautifully shaped nails, unlike those of Miss Cook, who 
was in the bad habit of biting her nails. 

Holding the arm of Katie lightly in one hand he passed his 
other hand along it from the^shoulder. "The skin," he says, 
"was beautifully— I may say, unnaturally— smooth, like wax 
or marble ; yet the temperature was that of the healthy human 
body. There was, however, no bone in the wrist. I lightly felt 
5 



66 MR. TAPP'S TESTIMONY. 

round the wrist again, and then told Katie that the bone was 
wanting. She laughed, and said, 'Wait a bit,' and after go- 
ing about to the other sitters, came round and placed her arm 
in mj' hand as before." 

This time Mr. Tapp was satisfied. Sure enough, the bone 
was there. 

In two instances he saw Katie with long ringlets reaching 
to her waist, the hair being of a light brown color ; while the 
medium's hair was cut short, and was not curled, its color be- 
ing a very dark brown, almost black. Katie's eyes were 
sometimes a light blue color, sometimes dark brown ; and this 
difference was frequently noticed. 

On one occasion Katie, on coming out of the cabinet, held 
up her right arm, which was of a dusky black color. Letting 
it fall by her side, and raising it again almost instantaneously, 
it was the usual flesh color like the other arm. 

One evening Mr. Tapp made some jesting remark to Katie, 
when she suddenly struck him heavily in the chest with her 
clenched fist. He was startled, and, indeed, hurt by the un- 
expected blow ; so much so, that he inadvertently caught hold 
of her right arm by the wrist. 

"Iler wrist," he says, " crumpled in my grasp like apiece 
of paper, or thin cardboard, my fingers meetiny through it. 
I let go at once, and expressed my regret that I had forgotten 
the conditions, fearing that harm to the medium might ensue ; 
but Katie reassured me, saying, that as my act was not inten- 
tional, she could avert any untoward result." 

In conclusion Mr. Tapp bears the fullest testimony to the 
good faith and integrity of Miss Cook and her family. 

That some abnormal power was at work in the manifesta- 
tions through Miss Cook, no intelligent investigator seems to 
have denied. Katie would not be gone more than forty sec- 
onds at most from the circle, when the curtain of the cabinet 
would be drawn, and Miss Cook would be found waking from 
her trance. It was manifestly a physical impossibility for 
her to have changed her gown, put on her boots, dressed her 
hair and altered the color of it, and, in addition to all this, 



MR. CROOKES'S TESTIMONY. 67 

destroyed all trace of the " spirit's" flowing white robes, in 
less than a minute. 

The question, therefore, reduced itself to this : Does the 
mysterious force do all these things, after having thrust forth 
the entranced medium to play the part of a spirit ? What re- 
mained now to do in this investigation, was to establish still 
more conclusively, and by scientific tests, the separate identi- 
ty of the two forms. 



CHAPTER Y. 

Early in the year 1874, Prof. William Crookes, F. R. S., a 
well-known chemist, discoverer of the metal thalium, author 
of several esteemed scientific works, and editor of the Quar- 
terly Journal of Science, undertook the investigation of the 
phenomena through Miss Cook. 

In a letter dated 20, Mornington-road, London, Feb. 3d, 
1874, Mr. Crookes writes: " Miss Cook is now devoting her- 
self exclusively to a series of private seances with me and one 
or two friends. The seances will probably extend over some 
months, and I am promised that every desirable test shall be 
given to me. . . . Enough has taken place to thoroughly 
convince me of the perfect truth and honesty of Miss Cook." 

Mr. Crookes began his investigations of Spiritualism as 
early as 1869. He endeavored to study the subject in its sci- 
entific aspect solely, without any bias from its sentimental or 
theological bearings. Under date of Dec, 1871, he says : "1 
wish to ascertain the laws governing the appearance of very 
remarkable phenomena, which, at the present time, are oc- 
curring to an almost incredible extent. That a hitherto un- 
recognized form of force— whether it be called psychic force 
or x force is of little consequence— is involved in this occur- 
rence, is not with me a matter of opinion, but of absolute 
knowledge \ but the nature of that force, or the cause which 



68 THE DIALECTICAL SOCIETY. 

immediately excites its activity, forms a subject on which I 
do not at present feel competent to offer an opinion." 

On the 6th of January, 1869, the London Dialectical Society 
appointed a committee to investigate the phenomena. Five- 
sixths of the members of it entered on their duties in the full 
conviction that they should detect a fraud, or dissipate a 
delusion. 

The theories of self-delusion and imposture were soon dis- 
missed by the committee as out of the question. The motions 
and sounds were undoubtedly real, and were certainly not 
caused by any trickery. 

The committees' third and last explanatory conjecture, 
that, namely, of unconscious muscular action, which they 
had eagerly accepted on the authority of Faraday, they were 
compelled reluctantly to abandon, and to admit that there is 
a force, independent of muscular force, producing motion in 
heavy substances without contact or material connection, of 
any kind, between such substances and the body of any per- 
son present. 

This mysterious force was found to be frequently directed 
by intelligence ; and Sub-committee Number One. reported 
unanimously that the one important physical fact thus 
proved to exist, that motion may be produced in solid bodies 
without material contact, by some hitherto unrecognized force 
operating within an undefined distance from the human organ- 
ism, and beyond the range of muscular action, should be sub- 
jected to further scientific examination, with a view to as- 
certain its true source, nature and power. 

Mr. Crookes constructed an ingenious apparatus, whereby 
not only could the existence of any force be demonstrated by 
delicate tests, but the amount and direction of it measured 
with perfect accuracy. Prof. Hare, of Philadelphia, and Dr. 
J. R. Nichols, a Boston chemist, had long before satisfied 
themselves, by similar tests, of the reality and independence 
of the force. 

In his London Quarterly Journal of Science for January, 
1874, Mr. Crookes published the result of further investiga- 



THE FACTS TESTED BY SCIENCE. 69 

tions, from which it would appear that he had made great 
progress. The occurrences to which he here testifies took 
place mostly in his own house, in the light, and with only pri- 
vate friends present besides the medium. He classifies some 
of the phenomena of which he became assured under the 
following heads : 

1. The movement of heavy bodies with contact, but with- 
out mechanical exertion ; 2. The phenomena of percussive 
and other allied sounds ; 3. The alteration of weight of 
bodies ; 4. Movements of heavy substances when at a dis- 
tance from the medium ; 5. The rising of tables and chairs off 
the ground without contact with any person ; 6. The levita- 
tion of human beings ; 7. Movement of various small articles 
without contact with any person ; 8. Luminous appearances ; 
9. The appearance of hands, either self-luminous or visible 
by ordinary light ; 10. Direct writing ; 11. Phantom forms 
and faces ; 12. Special instances which seem to point to the 
agency of an exterior intelligence ; 13. Miscellaneous occur- 
rences of a complex character. 

The mediums for these phenomena were chiefly Miss Kate 
Fox and Mr. D. D. Home ; and Mr. Crookes took such pre- 
cautions as place trickery out of the list of possible explana- 
tions. Every fact, moreover, which he observed, is corrobo- 
rated, as he admits, by the records of independent observers 
at other times and places. 

" It will be seen," he says, " that the facts are of the most 
astounding character, and seem utterly irreconcilable with 
all known theories of modern science. ,, Having satisfied him- 
self of their truth, he saw it would be moral cowardice to 
withhold his testimony. 

Mr. Crookes cautiously abstains from any confident theory 
in regard to the source of the phenomena. He is not yet pre- 
pared, like Mr. Wallace, to accept Spiritualism as the only 
theory that can cover all the facts. At first he was disposed 
to stop, in company with Serjeant Cox, at the half-way house 
of Psychic Force, or "x force," whatever that may be. We 



(0 PSYCHIC FORCE. 

must not complain of him for this, for nearly all earnest in- 
vestigators have had to tarry at this point for a while. 

The theory of Psychic Force is by no means new. It was 
advocated, under the name of Odic Force, by the late Dr. E. 
C. Rogers, of Boston, with whom I had many discussions as 
far back as the year 1852, at which time he published a book 
on the subject. The theory was subsequently urged by Prof. 
Mahan and President Samson in America, and by Count 
Gasparin in France. Under its present name it was put 
forth by Mr. E. W. Cox, serjeant-at-law, a member of the Di- 
alectical Society, author of a pamphlet entitled " Spiritual- 
ism answered by Science," and of an interesting psychologi- 
cal work in two volumes, entitled, " What Am I ?*' 

The term "Psychic Force " may be regarded as a euphem- 
ism, useful in lessening the shock which the facts might im- 
part to those who are disaffected by the term Spiritualism. 
Psychic force, if it means anything, means spiritual force, 
and the question, bluntly stated, is, whether spirits out of the 
flesh can have and exercise spiritual force as well as spirits in 
the flesh. 

Does the medium, under the effect of "unconscious cere- 
bration," send forth from the human organism a troop of 
visible, materialized forms, that can write, play on instru- 
ments, dance, sing, and converse rationally, the medium the 
while, as in the case of Mrs. Andrews, of Moravia, being 
herself aware of what is going on, though not that she her- 
self is doing it ? Or, are these materialized forms what they 
by speech declare themselves to be, manifestations by some 
independent spirit or spirits ? 

Was it psychic force that enabled Mr. Jencken's infant boy, 
when not six months old, to write, in the chirography of an 
adult, intelligible sentences? 

Will psychic force explain an occurrence like the following, 
related by Mr. Henry E. Eussell, and published in the Lon- 
don Medium of July 17th, 1874, in a notice of the mediumship 
of Mr. Charles Edward Williams, of Londor 



A PKOOF DIRECT. 71 

" The writer has been often visited by Mr. Williams, and on 
many occasions when sitting with his family round a harmo- 
nium, the medium being deeply entranced upon an adjacent 
couch, and distinctly seen by every one in the room, the 
writer's father, many years since 'passed on before,' has 
drawn up a chair from a remote part of the room and joined 
the members of the circle, talking with them, singing with 
them, and selecting pieces of music to be played on the in- 
strument. He has knelt down beside the writer's mother, as 
in prayer, has placed portions of his robes around the shoul- 
ders of some, and has drawn back their heads so as to lean on 
his breast, and stooping dow r n kissed each of them before 
floating up to the ceiling, wishing them good night, and then 
dematerializing his form, or rather, apparently, vanishing 
from their sight, the medium at the same time being seen still 
extended on the couch. On such occasions several recognized 
spirits have been walking about and talking at the same time." 

Truly the psychic force that could accomplish all this must 
be something more marvelous than the agency of a whole 
legion of spirits. 

Of Mr. Russell, the witness of this remarkable occurrence, 
my friend, Benjamin Coleman, writes me, (July 21st, 1874): 
"Mr. Russell is a very reliable man, and the postmaster of 
Kingston, near Richmond." 

The theory of a force unconsciously exercised by the me- 
dium, and producing all the various phenomena, is based only 
on a portion of the admitted facts. The higher phenomena, 
manifested in the actual appearance and tangibility of spirit 
forms, and the preterhuman rapidity of spirit action, are not 
included in the synthesis on w r hich the theory is built. The 
best answer to this theory may be found in the facts to which 
I shall soon return. 

Before I do this, however, let us consider what light, if any, 
Spiritualism throws on the great question of the ages, What 
is meant by spirit, and what by matter ? 

By substance, in metaphysics, is meant, not the equivalent 
of matter, but that which stands under phenomena. It is 
the fundamental fact of all existence. Spinoza defines it as 
self-existence ; Leibnitz, as an active force like that of the 
strained bow ; while Berkeley ironically tells us that it is the 
tortoise that supports the elephant that supports the world. 
We can never know it, for we know only phenomena, which 
are its appearances. 



72 SPIRIT AND MATTER 



CHAPTER VI. 

11 What do you mean by spirit ?" is the question with which 
the sanguine Spiritualist is often checked. 

To reply intelligently he ought to know something of the 
efforts of human thought to throw light on the problem ; but 
this knowledge can be had only by patient attention to certain 
results of philosophical speculation. These I will endeavor 
to present as briefly as possible ; but the reader, if not in a 
mood for meditation, will do well to postpone their considera- 
tion for a more convenient moment. 

Man has been described variously as a trinity, a duality, and 
a unity of two parts, physical and psychical. 

Are there two substances ? 

"The arguments for the two substances," says Alexander 
Bain (1873), "have, we believe, lost their validity ; they are 
no longer compatible with ascertained science and clear 
thinkiDg." 

This sweeping declaration is by no means admitted by 
many of the profoundest thinkers of the age. 

Are there, then, simply degrees of one and the same sub- 
stance ? Or, are matter and spirit distinct entities ? 

The question is at the bottom of nearly all the controversies 
in philosophy and theology that have vexed human brains the 
last two centuries ; and from the solutions, arrived at by dif- 
ferent minds, emerges either Theism or Pantheism. 

According to Mr. Herbert Spencer, the disputants on both 
sides are "equally absurd ;" for they are both trying to fathom 
the "unknowable." 

But one ougli t to know a good deal to have a right to say 
that. 

My present object is to learn how far the question is affect- 
ed by the facts of Spiritualism. Do we get from that quarter 
any new light ? 



SPIRITUALISM IN THE BIBLE. 75 

Is immateriality a necessary quality of spirit ? Lccke says 
it is not ; that the thinking substance in us, whether matter 
or not matter, is a spirit. This was the notion of the ancients, 
and is still the belief of uncivilized men. To their concep- 
tions, naught is immaterial but what is naught. 

By soul, and its correlative words in other languages, has 
been understood, generally, the spirit while animating a hu- 
man body, and by spirit, the same soul as it is after that body's 
dissolution. But the use of the words is arbitrary and far 
from uniform. 

Cicero and Virgil regard the soul as a subtile matter which 
might come under the name of aura (breeze), or ignis (tire), 
or ather, and this soul they both of them called spiritus (a 
breathing). In the Bible we find the same conception of 
spirit ; though, that sometimes the scriptural use of the word 
will bear the interpretation of immateriality, is not denied. 

Immortality is taken for granted, both in the Old Testa- 
ment and in the language of Christ. Warburton's specula- 
tions to the contrary are now regarded as worthless. Belief 
in immortality entered into all the science, customs, actions 
and thoughts of the Egyptians. Could Moses, brought up in 
the palace of the Pharaohs, could the Israelites, so long dwell- 
ers in the land, have escaped the influence of the belief? Not 
only historical induction, but the text itself, refutes the sup- 
position. 

Repeatedly we find it prohibited in the Pentateuch to evoke 
the dead. In the Book of Samuel, the Witch of Endor calls 
up the shade of the prophet. Belief in spirits is equally im- 
plied in all the accounts of visions, spirit writings, hands and 
voices, apparitions, levitations, ascensions, and other preter- 
human phenomena, so like those of Modern Spiritualism, 
throughout the Bible. Even Job, who often speaks as if the 
future life were left out of his calculations, has a spirit pass 
before his face, and hears a spirit voice. 

Spiritualism does not use the terms spirit and soul as hav- 
ing only a negative meaning ; as merely implying non-cor- 
poreity. Tertullian gives an account of a female medium 



74 SPIRIT AND MATTER. 

wto described a soul as corporeally exhibited to her view, 
and as being " tender and lucid, and of aerial color, and every 
way of human form. ,, 

Others, both seers and theologians, among the ancients, 
regarded man as a trinity of earth-body, spirit-body and 
spirit. 

The Spiritualism of many of the early Christian Fathers 
seems to have been a sort of Organicism, explaining life by 
the properties of organs, and regarding matter, once organ- 
ized, as sufficient to explain all the phenomena of man, 
whether we consider him as existing in the natural or in the 
spiritual body. 

The primary conception of spirit seems to have been that of 
an attenuation of matter. Men must have become early 
aware that there are certain invisible essences of things. If 
wine is subjected to a boiling temperature, there is a separa- 
tion of elements ; but the finer part, disengaging itself from 
the grosser, may not be distinguished by all the senses until, 
by the aid of a distilling apparatus, the escaping spirit is 
liquefied and made visible. 

Thus, the earliest conceptions of the relations of body and 
soul amounted to a sort of double materialism. Among primi- 
tive and uncivilized races this notion is universally prevalent. 
(See Tylor's " Primitive Culture," passim). We find it com- 
mon when we go back as far as history and tradition extend. 
It was the belief of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the 
Medes, and the early Christians, as it is now of the North 
American Indian, the Australian, the Hottentot and the Es- 
quimaux. To its prevalence, all the traditions, all the reli- 
gions, and all the narratives of navigators testify conclusively. 

Among the Christian Fathers the conception of a soul- 
body, involved, larva-like, in the earth-body— a conception 
simple, obvious and aboriginal— was generally held up to the 
time of Gregory of Nyssa (331-394) and of Augustine 
(354-430). Before this, neither from Judaism nor from 
Christianity had the doctrine of immateriality received much 
countenance. 



DESCAKTES ANP SI INOZA. 75 

Even Augustine, embarrassed to decide how the immate- 
rial soul can act on the dense matter of the body in producing 
movement, postulated a subtle corporeal substance, equiva- 
lent to a soul-body, which, as intermediate, may be affected 
and put in action by the mind. 

Tertullian argues that what is bodiless is nothing ; he predi- 
cates corporeity of Deity itself. The modern Christian no- 
tion that the soul is perfectly simple, incorporeal, and imma- 
terial, was unknown to the early church. 

It was not till Descartes (1640) taught the dogma of the im- 
materiality of the soul, that it began to supersede the common 
belief. "To the best of my knowledge," says Coleridge, 
"Descartes was the first philosopher who introduced the 
absolute and essential heterogeneity of the soul as intelli- 
gence, and the body as matter." 

"It is manifest," says Hallam, "to any one who has read 
the correspondence of Descartes, that the tenet of the soul's 
immateriality, instead of being general, as we are apt to pre- 
sume, was by no means in accordance with the common 
opinion of his age." 

And Descartes, let it be noted, in the effort to be consistent 
with his philosophy, made the declaration, still acquiesced 
in by many "Orthodox" teachers, but rejected totally by 
Spiritualism, that there are no valid proof s of the soul's immor- 
tality except those founded on revelation. 

Spinoza, (1665,) who was largely under the influence of 
Descartes, having identified mind and matter, God and the 
universe, seems to have regarded the phenomenal facts of 
witchcraft, somnambulism and Spiritualism, as fatal to his 
Pantheistic system ; and so he repudiated them all. 

The soul, according to Spinoza, is nothing but a conscious 
body, and the body nothing but a soul having extension. 

In his dread of dualism he rejects the positive facts, indi- 
cating preterm undane power, which were well known to 
many of his contemporaries. He might have admitted them, 
and still clung to his theory of a single substance, if the Car- 
tesian notion of the soul's immateriality had not driven out of 



76 SPINOZA OPPOSES SPIRITUALISM. 

his head the double materialism of the early Christians. For 
there may be grades of matter, and still a single substance. 
But he strove to make everything tally unequivocally with 
his Pantheistic scheme. 

Body and soul being, in his system, identical in substance, 
we may understand how they should be united in the terres- 
trial life, but how the soul, bodiless and unsubstantial, and 
parted from the one only substance, is going to get along any 
better under "the aspect of eternity" than under "the as- 
pect of time," he does not make clear to us; nor does he 
explain why, the substance being one, death should not 
destroy soul as well as body. 

In Spinoza's scheme the departed soul is indeed poorly off. 
The senses, the imagination, the human affections, all be- 
come annihilated with the death of the body. Reason only 
remains ; there is light, but no warmth ; intellect, but no love. 

Thus, by depriving us, at death, of all that we have acquir- 
ed, through the senses, during the earth-life, Spinoza virtual- 
ly destroys our individuality, and leaves the soul, after separa- 
tion from the body, equivalent, as Emile Saisset remarks, to 
" little more than a naked syllogism." 

In failing to see that there may be, though impenetrable to 
sense, a duplicate and permanent ground of being in man, in 
which memory, affection and all knowledge may organically 
inhere, Spinoza was obliged to strip man of all those constitu- 
ents essential to a conscious immortality. A glimpse of the 
spiritual body beyond the material would have saved him 
from many inconsistencies. 

Among Spinoza's letters are several that passed between 
himself and a Spiritualist, though not a very enlightened one, 
of his day. To the phenomenal facts adduced by the latter, 
Spinoza replies petulantly : "lam indeed confounded to dis- 
cover men of parts and ingenuity misusing their powers in 
attempts to persuade mankind of the truth of such absurdi- 
ties." 

Here Spinoza loses his temper, and scolds like a Cambridge 
professor at the thought of a spiritual manifestation. 



THE GREAT PROBLEM. 77 

/ 

" Had I only," he writes, " as clear a conception of a spectre 
as I have of a triangle or a circle, I should not hesitate to ac- 
knowledge that it was created by God." 

To this his correspondent replies with some point : "Tell 
me, 1 entreat you, whether you have as clear an idea of a God 
as of a triangle ?" 

And Spinoza's answer is : " Yes ; but if you ask whether I 
can form an image or picture of God as clear as that I form of 
a triangle, I answer No. For we cannot picture God to our- 
selves, but we can verily understand him." 

This is a subterfuge unworthy of the great Spinoza; but with 
all his hair-splitting he does not parry the fhrust of his cor- 
respondent. The latter, when pressed to explain his concep- 
tion of a spectre, might have replied in words very like those 
of Spinoza himself, when qualifying his remark in regard to 
his conception of God. The retort would have been perfect- 
• ly apt. 

But let it be remembered that Spiritualism, in Spinoza's 
day, had to bear the burden of many gross superstitions, evi- 
dent in the burning of witches and the prevailing demonpho- 
bia; and it is not surprising that, in his contempt for such 
wrongs and such cowardice, he should have undervalued and 
gradually taught himself to discredit the phenomena on which 
the belief in the agency of spirits was founded. 

I come back to the great discussion stigmatized by Spencer 
as "absurd." 

If the question is put, " What do you mean by spirit?" the 
obvious retort is, "What do you mean by matter ?" 

Materialism regards matter as the first and only existence, 
and mind as one of its modes or properties, like heat, elec- 
tricity, or chemical action. 

Idealism regards mind as the first and only existence, hav- 
ing matter for one of its modes ; the conception of matter be- 
ing only a mental synthesis of qualities. 

Realism denounces the Idealist's notion of the non-reality 
of matter. "Metaphysics, in all its anti-realistic develop- 
ments," says Herbert Spencer, " is a disease of language." 



78 SPIRIT AND MATTER. 

Even Hehnholtz, the great German scientist, who criticises 
the human eye as a very bad piece of work, which he should 
have sent back for alteration if it had been produced by a hu- 
man artificer, tells us that our senses report aright, and that 
things are what they appear ; all which, considering the low 
character of the Maker in Helmholtz's estimation, would 
seem to be somewhat contradictory. 

On the contrary, Plato, Plotinus, Kant, Hamilton, and other 
profound philosophical thinkers, tell us that we cannot know 
things in themselves ; we can perceive only the appearances 
of things. 

Mr. Spencer says that these great men did not believe their 
own speculations. Perhaps not ; and yet there may have 
been some truth in them. We may be often wiser than we 
know. 

The stupendous phenomena of Modern Spiritualism make 
us pause, and ask once more : What, then, is this mystery 
called matter ? 

All the conceptions of matter we get through the senses 
are modified, if not contradicted, by some of the well-attested 
proofs of spirit-power. 

The materialized figure of Katie has been known to disap- 
pear instantly on reentering the cabinet where Miss Cook was 
lying entranced. 

In describing the remarkable phenomena through Mrs Anna 
Stewart at Terre Haute, Ind., Mr. Theodore F. Price of Mon- 
son, Ind., under date of March 4th, 1875, writes : " The doors 
of the cabinet were thrown open, and the spirit appeared 
holding the medium by the hand. Both spirit and medium 
advanced from the cabinet, now vacated by all things visible 
save the chair in which the medium previous to this had been 
seated. Said the spirit : ■ Can you now all see the medium, 
and distinguish us both clearly ? Are you all satisfied now 
that there is no deception about this?' Both spirit and me- 
dium remained standing in front of the cabinet for some 
minutes, the former asking that all should closely scrutinize 
the features of each." The light on this occasion was " clear 
and satisfying." 



ASTONISHING FACTS. 79 

The spirit Florence that came through Miss Showers, at Mr. 
Luxmoore's house, in London, April 11th, 1874, dematerial- 
ized herself and her white robes almost instantly, so as to be 
invisible, and this three times in quick succession. 

Mr. Alfred K. Wallace, in his "Defence of Spiritualism, ,, 

gives the following account of some of the phenomena through 

Miss Nichol (afterwards Mrs. Guppy) : 

" The most remarkable feature of this lady's mediumship 
is the production of flowers and fruits in closed rooms. The 
first time this occurred was at my own house, at a very early 
stage of her development. All present were my own friends. 
Miss Nichol had come early to tea, it being mid- winter, and 
she had been with us in a very warm, gas-lighted room four 
hours before the flowers appeared. The essential fact is, that 
upon a bare table, in a small room closed and dark (the adjoin- 
ing room andpassage being well lighted), a quantity of flowers 
appeared, which were not there when we put out the gas a 
few minutes before. They consisted of anemones, tulips, 
chrysanthemums, Chinese primroses, and several ferns. All 
were absolutely fresh, as if just gathered from a conservato- 
ry. They were covered with a fine, cold dew. Not a petal 
was crumpled or broken, not the most delicate point or pin- 
nule of the ferns was out of place. I dried and preserved the 
whole, and have, attached to them, the attestation of all pres- 
ent that they had no share, so far as they know, in bringing 
the flowers into the room. I believed at the time, and still 
believe, that it was absolutely impossible for Miss N. to have 
concealed them so long, to have kept them so perfect, and, 
above all, to produce them covered throughout with a most 
beautiful coating of dew, just like that which collects on the 
outside of a tumbler when filled with very cold water on a 
hot day." 

At a meeting of the Marylebone Association of Inquirers 
into Spiritualism, in London, March 18th, 1871, Mr. Thomas 
Everitt said that he had known as many as nine hundred and 
thirty-six words to be written in a second by spirit-power. A 
pencil was used in this work ; and that the writing was not 
done by some process analogous to lithography was rendered 
probable by several specified tests. 

The flowing white robes of the spirit Katie would disappear 
instantly with the spirit- form, and yet, as we have learnt, she 
cut strips from her tunic and distributed them, and these have 
remained materialized, though the cut places were instantly 
made whole by the spirit. 

Not only have inanimate objects been brought through 



80 SPIRIT AND MAT TER. 

walls and ceilings into closed rooms, but living things. In 
the London Medium (Dec. 30th, 1870), a case is mentioned 
in which a dog and a cat were brought from Mrs. Guppy's 
house by the spirits, a distance of two or three miles. The 
names of eight witnesses to the occurrence are given. 

The floating of the human body in the air has been a very 
common phenomenon. Dr. Davies narrated, at one of the 
Ilarley street meetings, in London, how he felt Mr. Home all 
over, while he was floating about in a semi-darkened room. 
Mr. E. B. Tylor (author of Primitive Culture), gave, in a lec- 
ture at the Royal Institution (1871), several instances of 
statements in historical records, that certain of the early 
fathers of the church were very often floated in the air. 
While holding the hand of a medium, in the dark, I have my- 
self known her to be lifted in her chair and placed on the ta- 
ble. In the Loudon Spiritualist (June 15th, 1871), will be 
found an account of a sitting at which Mr. Ilerne was float- 
ed in the air in the light. 

Spirit music, in the absence of all human instruments, has 
been heard, not only by mediums, but by several persons at 
once, who were in thefr normal state. 

Solid objects have been introduced in some unaccountable 
manner. " I have been present," says Mr. W. II. Harrison, 
l< often in broad daylight, with Messrs. Ilerne and Williams, 
when solid objects, such as books and flowers, have fallen on 
us from above, where nothing but the whitewashed ceiling 
was to be seen." 

Spirit photography, though genuine specimens are easily 
imitated, is now an admitted fact. I have received a remark- 
able photograph got by Mr. John Beattie, a retired photog- 
rapher of Clifton, England. He had his own plates and appa- 
ratus, and superintended the whole process himself. A me- 
dium present would describe the form of the spiritual pres- 
ence, and then the photographic impression would confirm 
the report. The figure in my copy, though almost grotesque, 
is yet human in its features, and sufficiently distinguishable. 
Mr. Alfred R. Wallace gives his testimony explicitly to the 



A LETTEK CARRIED BY SPIRITS. 81 

reality of spirit-photography. Lady Caithness, whom I knew 
in London, vouches (July 24th, 1874) for five recognizable 
spirit-photographs she and her son got through Buguet, the 
Parisian, to whom they went perfect strangers. Buguet took 
too many genuine spirit-photographs in London to leave it 
doubtful that he was a medium. L'nfortunately he was 
tempted by want of money to supplement with fraud his in- 
sufficient and variable medial power, and subsequently, on 
being arrested in Paris, to abjure his mediumship. Once safe 
in Brussels, he addressed a letter (Sept. 27th, 1875) to the 
French Minister of Justice, confessing his apostasy. 

In a letter from Florence, Italy, April 4th, 1872, to Professor 
Crookes, Baron Seymour Kirkup, an honorable man and sin- 
cere student of Spiritualism (see Hawthorne's account of him), 
relates that on a certain occasion he asked Annina Carboni, a 
spirit, to take a letter to her sister, Teresa, still in the earth- 
life, and residing at Leghorn. Paolina Carboni, another sis- 
ter, was the medium. The Baron made a sketch of the letter, 
and Paolina copied it. In this letter Teresa is told to note 
the exact minute of its arrival, and to mention in her answer 
the exact time of sending it. "When Paolina," says the 
Baron, "had finished her letter, she went away, and I shut 
the door and remained alone. I folded the half sheet, and 
placed it at 6 p. m. on the piano, unsealed, and without an en- 
velope. I watched it, expecting to see it go ; but after two 
minutes, finding that it remained, I took a book, and after two 
minutes more I looked, and the note was gone. The door re- 
mained shut, and no one entered the room. At eight minutes 
past seven came three loud raps on the sofa. I went to the 
piano, to see— nothing. I returned to the table, and there on 
my book was a little triangular note, like Paolina's. It was 
a punctual answer to it, and I called Paolina to read it. The 
spirit had made two journeys of sixty miles each, besides 
waiting for the writing of the answer (fifteen lines), in the 
short time of one hour and fifteen minutes. As I remained 
on purpose totally alone, there could be no trick, no smug- 
gling a prepared letter. . . . Another witness of my dear 
6 



82 SPIRIT AND MATTER. 

Annina's exploit, is her mother, wife of a former English 
vice-consul at Rome. She has just come from Leghorn, where 
she was present when her daughter Teresa received and an- 
swered the letter of Paolina." 

Subsequently to this, Baron Kirk up received still more strik- 
ing evidences of the speed of the actual transmission of real, 
objective letters, to great distances, by spirit power. 

The venerable S. C. Hall, honorably known in English lit- 
erature, referring to the mediumship of Mr. D. D. Home, 
writes (1871): " I have held an accordion (my 'own property) 
in my hand, when delicious music was played on it, lasting 
several minutes. It has been taken from me, and carried to 
the end of a large room, playing there ; I saw the stops mov- 
ing and heard the music : I could only not see the power that 
produced the sounds. . . . Since this was written I have 
seen a hand moving the accordion up and down, and another 
hand acting on the stops. Two other gentlemen saw these 
hands also. The room was well lit. ... I have seen a 
man (Mr. Home) taken from his seat by some power invisi- 
ble, and conveyed about the room ; and he has marked on the 
ceiling with a pencil, a mark that is still there. A red-hot 
blazing coal has been taken from a fierce fire, and placed (by 
Home) on my head, without singeing a single hair. I have 
seen nearly a hundred flowers — among them two large 
bunches of apple-blossom— thrown on my table ; the medium, 
a lady (Miss Nichol), having been previously examined by 
two ladies on entering my house. I have repeatedly grasped 
? spirit-hand. I have seen lights that seemed phosphoric, to 
the number of, it may be twenty, at once, floating in all parts 
of a room. I have seen a heavy table floated to the ceiling. 
A grand piano has been raised from the floor, no visible per- 
son being within two yards of it. I have seen a hand-bell 
raised by a shadowy hand, and rung over the head of each 
person in the circle." 

Mr. W. H. Harrison relates that on one occasion Katie in 
the dark, gave the persons present something to feel, saying, 
" That is what we make the faces of. Do not pinch it. " It felt 



SPIRIT POWER OYER MATTER. 83 

liUe a piece of damp wash-leather. Next she said: "Feel 
this; it is true spirit drapery.' ' The texture was certainly 
remarkable. As it was drawn over the fingers it felt as light 
and fragile as a spider's web ; fine silk would be coarse and 
heavy in comparison. "Now feel it materialized," said 
Katie, and it felt like the heavy white drapery which ordina- 
rily adorns the spirit heads. 

But I need only refer to the facts I have already given in 
the narrative parts of this work, of the materialization and 
dematerialization of hands and entire human forms ; of the 
extemporaneous production of appropriate clothing, orna- 
ments, flowers, etc. ; the passage of articles through solid mat- 
ter; the production of drawings and writings with incon- 
ceivable swiftness, the motions literally equaling the quick- 
ness of thought; the apparent mastery of all material 
impediments. 

It may be inferred from these phenomena that matter is to 
spirits something very different from what it is to mortals in 
the flesh ; that our knowledge of it is, as the highest philoso- 
phy often asserts, simply relative and phenomenal ; that a 
change in our organs of sense and perception would make 
matter other than what it now appears to us. 

Leibnitz concluded that space is not something real, but 
only a subjective representation. Kant teaches that space 
and time are forms of our sensibility, pure intuitions, and 
have no corresponding objective reality. De Remusat, J. S. 
Mill, Bain, and others, believe that extension is a concep- 
tion derived from our muscular sensibility. 

These views, so astounding and even absurd to thinkers 
who have not yet risen into this rarefied air of speculation, 
accord with the teachings professedly got from personal com- 
munion with spirits by Swedenborg, the great Swedish me- 
dium and seer. But Swedenborg further teaches that the 
only possible existence, the sole ground of consciousness, for 
finite and derivative beings, must be phenomenal. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer thinks that the experience-hypothesis 
better explains the genesis of our conceptions of space and 



84= SPIRIT AND MATTER. 

time. Whatever may be the genesis, the fact of their relativ* 
ity may be realized by a few simple considerations :* 

Suppose that while you are unconscious of any change, the 
whole world and all its contents should become enlarged a 
hundred times. Imagine the foot measure to be a hundred 
times longer, and everything increased to correspond. 

When consciousness should return, things would appear to 
you just as they did before their enlargement. Tou would 
perceive no change. Your senses would be the measure- of 
things as before. The relations and proportions of tilings 
would be the same. The whole outer world would be the 
same ; how, then, to you can it be said to have any other exist- 
ence or place than what your sensations and thoughts assign to it t 

If our organs of sensation, with the brain and the nerves, 
were formed and proportioned otherwise than they are, the 
whole visible world would not appear as it does now. If our 
eyes were so formed as to have telescopic and microscopic 
powers, or if they were as sensitive to impressions as the 
photographer's prepared plate, the whole creation would as- 
sume new aspects. Proximity and distance would affect us 
very differently ; and spiritual beings might be plainly seen. 

A knowledge of optics soon teaches us that the report we 
get through the senses is often merely relatively correct. 
Yesterday I looked out of my window at a church steeple, 
which, in a peculiar light, just before an August sunset, and 
while a thunderstorm was brooding in a background of ebon 
cloud, appeared of a pure, snowy white. My wife and her 
brother looked also at the steeple, and it appeared a pure 
white to them ; and yet we all knew it was of a rather dark 
drab color. 

Ever to the senses the limitations of the seeming are the 
end of all things. We see nothing leave the body at death, 
and, therefore, we fancy that nothing leaves it. The delu- 
sion is an inseparable accompaniment of our finiteness. Thus 
all human systems are necessarily imperfect. We can only 
make approximations to the truth. 

* For a fuller illustration of the fact, see an excellent little work entitled 

* The Infinite and the Finite, ' ' by Theophilus Parsons. Boston : 1873. 



SPIRIT AND MATTER. 8ft 



CHAPTER YII. 

Only He who can see all things in the universe at once can 
see any one thing in its true relations and, therefore, in the 
light of absolute truth, and as it actually is. 

But because we do not see things as a Supreme Power may 
see them, or as spirits may partially see them, it does not 
follow that we do not see them aright under the limitations 
and relations to which we are here subjected, and so far as 
our external senses can aid us. Our mistake lies in supposing 
that these senses teach us all ; that their report is a finality ; 
whereas there are supersensual faculties in man, as indicated 
in the phenomena of somnambulism, clairvoyance, prevision, 
mediumship ; and it is the business of man's aspiring intelli- 
gence to acquaint himself with these faculties, to study and 
interpret their revelations. 

Thus one purpose of our subjection here to these limitations 
of sense and matter may be in order that, by our own efforts, 
we may rise above them into a higher atmosphere of truth. 
This discipline may be necessary to the growth of our spiritu- 
al and thinking faculties, since life without thought is a ru- 
dimental stage. 

Materialism says truly that it is contrary to sound phi- 
losophy to introduce two entities to explain the phenomena of 
j!ife when one will answer. It asks : As the vibrations of the 
light produce color, why may not the movements of the mole- 
cules of the brain generate thought and consciousness? 

To this the Spiritualist may reply : Since we are as ignorant 
of the substance of matter as we are of that of mind, of course 
we cannot say that they may not be one and the same sub- 
stance, supporting two very different sets of properties. Only, 
if this be so, then must matter have properties directly the re- 
verse of those we usually ascribe to it. Even Hartley admits 



86 MAN A TRINITY. 

that it is the same thing whether I suppose that matter has 
properties and powers unlike those which appear, and superi- 
or to them, or whether I suppose an immaterial substance. 

Whether we annihilate mind and make matter think, or 
whether we get rid of matter and substitute ideas, we are in 
an equal dilemma. The Materialist is as helpless as the Im- 
materialist or the Spiritualist in respect to the use of words. 
Materialism mocks at philosophy; but " to mock at philoso- 
phy," says Pascal, " what is it but to philosophise?*' 

Under the facts of Spiritualism we may regard it as still an 
open question, whether the unknown basis of matter may not 
be equivalent to the unknown basis of mind. Each may flow 
into existence from one divine creative substance ; but that 
they result in two exhibitions of power, distinct not only in 
degree but in kind, and justifying the trichotomy of earth- 
body, spirit-body, and soul, the facts of this volume tend to 
show. 

"To me," says Mrs. J. II. Conant, the well-known Ameri- 
can medium, "the soul is the inner life, the principle eternal 
with God, a part of God ; while the spirit is the covering or 
body of the soul, the intermediate body acting between the 
soul and the physical body in this life, and acting for the soul 
in the other life." 

This was substantially the notion of Plato, who regarded 
terrestrial man as a trinity of soul, soul-body, and earth-body. 

Such was the view of many of the early Christian Fathers, 
including Clement, Tatian, and Origen ; and it is taught in 
the writings of Rivail (1804—1869), who, under the pen-name 
of Allan Kardec is identified with the history of Modern Spir- 
itualism, and who derived his system from the teachings of 
spirits. 

Andrew Jackson Davis, while he holds that the human 
spiritual structure is a result wrought out by the physical or- 
ganization, believes in an uncreated principle of spirit ; so 
that here, too, we have a trinity. The spirit's organism, ac- 
cording to Davis, is substantial and obeys laws, superior, but 
not antagonistic, to ordinary gravitation and the known phy- 
sical forces. 



SKEPTICAL SOPHISTRY. 87 

Judge Edmonds says : " There is in man the emanation 
from God in the soul, the animal nature in the body, and the 
connection of the two in what I will designate as the electri- 
cal body. Hence, man is a trinity." 

The notion that spirit is merely an efflorescence of matter, 
that it is nothing until, in the words of Milton, "Body up to 
spirit work," is not consistent with these teachings, which re- 
gard spirit as the higher power, and matter as something 
which, if not distinct in essence, is at least subordinate, medi- 
ate and auxiliary. 

In Swedenborg's system man is an organism, fitted by an 
earth-body to live in this world, and by a spirit-body to live 
simultaneously in the spirit- world, and vivified by continual 
influx from the divine creative source. In the dissolution of 
the earth-body the real man remains unimpaired in his indi- 
viduality, except that his body and his surroundings are spir- 
itual. Thus in this system, as in the others I have named, 
terrestrial man has, besides his twofold body, a divine influx, 
the equivalent of a soul. 

" Either all matter," says Alfred R. Wallace, " is conscious, 
or consciousness is something distinct from matter, and in the 
latter case," which he claims to be true, " its presence in ma- 
terial forms is a proof of the existence of conscious beings, 
outside of, and independent of, what we term matter." 

Admitting that "what we term matter" may not include 
all matter— since our senses do not tell us what matter is in 
itself, but simply what it is to us, constituted as we are— this 
view will be found not inconsistent with the theories I have 
named. 

There is a skeptical philosophy somewhat active in our day, 
which would treat the subject of man's destiny as if all no- 
tion of causation could be excluded without doing violence to 
our reason. This school asserts, that for aught that we know 
to the contrary, anything may produce anything ; astonish- 
ing phenomena may occur without basis, cause or reason, 
outside of some antecedent phenomenon ; matter may pro- 
duce mind since there is no need that a cause should be ade- 



88 SPIRIT AND MATTER. 

quate to the production of an effect. " Every objectively real 
thing," says a writer of this school, " is a term in numberless 
series of mutual implications, and its reality outside of these 
series is utterly incoDceivable." 

But what scientific validity has an hypothesis like this? 
Does it not simply amount to a declaration that the problem 
is unsolvable and " unthinkable," and that we must abandon 
the attempt to meet the mind's legitimate demand for some- 
thing to explain the derivation of intelligence and other phe- 
nomena ? 

"It is impossible," says the same writer, " to construct mat- 
ter by a mere synthesis of forces." 

But this, aud his previous assertion, Spiritualism, by ex- 
tending, or rather duplicating the realm of causation and in- 
troducing new and transcendent facts, consigns to the limbo 
of exploded dogmas. 

Spiritualism gives us proofs of an intelligent Force, exert- 
ing itself both centrifugally and centripetally, repelling or 
attracting what, to our senses, is matter ; using this matter as 
its slave, its toy, its vestment, and its ready instrument ; find- 
ing in it, whether solid, fluid, or gaseous, no impediment] 
making it the plastic recipient of astonishing activities that 
seem to be independent of space and time, and ruled by an 
understanding will. 

" Among the unquestionable rules of scientific method," 
says Jevons, "is that first law that whatever phenomenon is, 
is. We must ignore no existence whatever ; we may various- 
ly interpret or explain its meaning and origin, but if a phe- 
nomenon does exist, it demands some kind of explanation. 
If, then, there is to be a competition for scientific recognition, 
the world without us must yield to the undoubted existence 
of the spirit within. 

"A phenomenon which entirely fails to be explained by 
any known laws may indicate the interference of some wholly 
new series of natural forces. Thus the doctrine of the load- 
stone was anciently thought to contradict the law of gravita- 
tion ; but there is no breach of that law." 



SPIRITUAL CAUSES. 8S 

Hence we may see how irrational are the notions of those 
who say that the law of gravitation is violated when a man is 
lifted by an unseen force, spiritual, but still natural, to the 
ceiling of a room. The phenomenon plainly has a cause, and 
the inquiry, What is that cause ? is perfectly legitimate ; 
although certain skeptics, when driven to the wall, reply, 
" Well, it proves nothing ; there are plenty of things quite as 
mysterious !" 

It proves this much at least : The limit which an atheistic 
Materialism would set up for us is swept away like mist by 
such a fact, and a new realm of causation is revealed for the 
exploration of thought. Science can no longer deny the exist- 
ence of beings and things because they cannot be seen, 
weighed and measured. 

Mr. John Beattie, whose investigations I have already 
mentioned, is of opinion that "spirit substance" is never 
photographed. His reasons are, that the spirit has power to 
attract to itself material envelopes or forms, upon which light 
may impinge, and which, in some cases of darkness, are self- 
luminous ; that these exteriors only are photographed ; that 
all forms of matter are merely the equivalents of motion- 
producing force ; not compositions of final atoms, but coordi- 
nations of forces which may be re-combined or changed into 
their equivalents ; and that thus the most enlightened Materi- 
alism must, when it arrives at its last analysis, merge in Spir- 
itualism, and confess that behind all material play there 
exists the source of all force, namely, Universal Mind. 

This last was the opinion of Plato, Plotinus, Bruno, Leib- 
nitz, and many of the greatest thinkers. 

The present tendency of science is to confirm their view by 
proving the unity of all forces and phenomena. But to this 
subject I shall again return. 

"Instead of regarding spirit," says Fern and Papillon, "as 
a property of matter, we should regard matter as a property 
of spirit. Materialism is false and imperfect because it stops 
short at atoms, in which it localizes those properties for which 
atoms supply no cause, and because it neglects force and 



90 SPIRIT AND MATTER. 

spirit, which are the only means we have, constituted as oui 
souls are, of conceiving the activity and the appearings of be- 
ings. It is false and imperfect, because it stops half-way, 
and treats compound and resolvable factors as simple and 
irreducible ones ; and because it professes to represent the 
world by shows without attempting to explain the production 
of those shows. . . . The source of differentiations can- 
not be in energy itself; it must be in a principle apart 
from that energy, in a superior will and consciousness, of 
which we have doubtless only a dim and faulty idea, but as to 
which we can yet affirm that they have some analogy with 
the inner light which fills us, and which we shed forth from 
us, and which teaches us, by its mysterious contact with the 
outer world, the infinite order of the universe." 

Science tells us that the microscopic germ which evolves 
into a human being does not differ from the germ of the net- 
tle, the reptile, or the beast. The chemical constituents are 
the same : oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon, with about 
four per cent, of other elements. 

What, then, causes the one germ to issue in a man and the 
other in a weed ? "An unknown something ," says Dr. Hitch- 
mau, 'must be posited in addition to the physiological pro- 
cesses accompanying the phenomena." Since the differ- 
ence is not in the material properties, it must be in what 
manifests itself as the psychical ; in something not explained 
by the word matter unless we make that word comprehend 
what we mean by spirit. 

Thus the ultimate form is predetermined in the embryo ; 
and this fact harmonizes with the Hegelian doctrine of Nature, 
which teaches that for every form of existence we may find 
the motive in that which apparently follows. For example, 
we may say that matter exists as a theatre for life, and life as 
a manifestation of mind. But that for the sake of which a 
phenomenon, takes place, muse be, in truth, though not in ap- 
pearance, prior to the phenomenon, and, moreover, it must be 
the substance and the truth of the phenomenon. The psychical, 
then, is the prior, the real, and the substantial ; the physical 
is the dependent, the phenomenal and the changing. 



SPIRIT FIRST. 91 

St. Paul speaks from appearances when he says, " That was 
not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural." On 
the contrary, spirit is the senior, the causative and the 
essential. 

" The demonstration/ ' says Mr. G. II. Lewes (1873), "that 
thinking is a seriation, and that a series involves time, dis- 
proves the notions of ultimate unity and simplicity applied 
tc a Thinking Principle." 

But the facts of clairvoyance shiver this assumption. Not 
long since a peasant in Germany gave the following test : he 
would let you grasp a handful of beans from a bag, and then 
he would tell instantly the exact number in your hand. 

The marvelous and instantaneous solution of complicate 
arithmetical problems by Zerah Colburn and other mathe- 
matical "prodigies" cannot be explained by the theory of a 
seriation of thought, as we mortals understand the word seri- 
ation. 

The hypothesis of a spiritual organism is " untenable," ac- 
cording to Mr. Lewes, because it is the introduction of an un- 
known to take the place of the knowable. 

But is not this a begging of the question ; an assumption, 
contravened by the facts of Spiritualism ; the assumption, 
namely, that our physical senses must be the measure of our 
entire organism? 

When an inexplicable phenomenon is presented, what says 
the Materialist ? Why, that we do not know all the resources 
and powers of Matter ! 

I readily admit the suggestion. We will suppose that it is 
unaided Matter which not only sees, feels, and thinks, but 
which produces the phenomena of clairvoyance, levitation, in- 
dependent movement, materialization and dematerialization 
of forms. 

Here, then, is a supposed particular matter, expressing it- 
self in phenomena, of which we have no reason to believe 
that matter in general is capable. This particular matter, 
therefore, is truly " unknown " to us, so far as its power to 
produce the phenomena is concerned. So unknown is it, that, 



92 SPIEIT AKD MATTER. 

in order to distinguish it from matter comparatively known t 
we call it by the name of spirit. 

Because we do this, it is not correct to say that we introduce 
an unknown to take the place of the known; for the matter 
that can produce the phenomenal have specified is not a mat- 
ter that is known to us, and we are justified in distinguishing 
it by the name of spirit from the matter that we know. 

The question whether this spirit is not a higher, subtler, and 
unknown form or grade of matter is distinct and perfectly 
legitimate. 

But the objections which men of science often raise to the 
use of the word spirit will be found, under a strict analysis, to 
apply equally to the use of the word matter. 

The late James F. Ferrier, though an acute metaphysician, 
used to lose his head when arguing against Spiritualism. In 
his day (1851) the phenomena had not attained their present 
development. Of Spiritualists, he says : " Oh, ye miserable 
mystics ! have ye bethought yourselves of the backward and 
downward course which ye are running into the pit of the 
bestial and the abhorred ?" 

These are but wild and whirling words. Ferrier's mistake 
was in imagining that there is such a chasm between the mor- 
tal and the immortal, that spirits are not human still, taking 
with them the characteristics which constituted their individ- 
uality while in the earthly body. 

Of matter he says : "It is already in the field as an ac- 
knowledged entity. Mind, considered as an independent en- 
tity, is not so unmistakably in the field. Therefore, as enti- 
ties are not to be multiplied without necessity, we are not 
entitled to postulate a new cause, so long as it is possible to 
account for the phenomena by a cause already in existence ; 
which possibility has never yet been disproved." 

But the matter which sees without material eyes, and hears 
without material ears, and manifests supersensual knowl- 
edge, is not in the field as an entity. A simple fact of clair- 
voyance confutes Ferrier's assumption, and reintroduces the 
question which he would bar out. 



METAPHYSICAL PROBLEMS. 9S 

Having a solid basis of facts on which to rest, Spiritualism 
can well afford to concern itself but little about the meta- 
physical disputes that have always agitated the human mind 
as to the nature of matter and spirit ; as to whether there are 
two entities or only one ; as to whether there is an underlying 
substance, apart from inhering qualities, or whether such a 
substance is a contradiction in thought, and only to be con- 
ceived of as inconceivable ; as to whether time and space are 
forms of our sensibility, pure intuitions, or real things ; as to 
whether extension is a conception got from our muscular sen- 
sibility, or something as real as it seems to us. 

All these high and subtle questions do not affect the one 
dominant proof of man's continued existence. There are 
phenomena in abundance, which, if they do not enlighten us 
as to the nature of matter in itself, at least show that matter 
has its master in what we are obliged, in the poverty of lan- 
guage, to distinguish by the name of spirit. 

One single decisive fact, says Dr. J. R. Buchanan (1873), 
" illustrating the mind's capacity for action independent of 
the brain, or its capacity for anything after the dissolution of 
the body, is worth a whole library of metaphysics." 

What spirit is in itself, or in its substance, may remain one 
of the inscrutable secrets of Nature ; but of spiritual power 
we may know something, just as we may know any natural 
fact. We know that a spirit can materialize and dematerial- 
ize a form, so as to manifest itself objectively to mortals in 
the flesh ; and that it can do many inexplicable things with a 
celerity that can be only described by the word magical, 
though the process is undoubtedly in strict conformity with 
natural laws. 

To the skeptic's question, "What do you mean by spirit?" 
we need therefore merely reply : " We mean by it some- 
thing that we cannot intelligently express by the word 
matter." 

Whether this something is simply some unknown matter, 
or whether its substance is distinct from that of all matter, 
are questions still open. 



94 MISS COOKS ACCOUNT. 

That spirit, though it may employ matter, for individuals 
zation and manifestation, is essentially distinct from it, and 
an entity independent of the conditions of space and time, 
seems, however, to be the belief of most Spiritualists ; and 
so, unless they lapse into Idealism, and regard matter as 
something unreal, the Pantheistic view of things can be ac- 
cepted only in company with a still higher truth. 

Thus Spiritualism, if it neither discredits nor confirms the 
doctrine of two substances, at least makes doubly distinct the 
separation between the phenomena of so-called matter and 
the phenomena of so-called spirit. The two in one have been 
compared to the convex and concave of the same curve. 

Plainly the domain of science does not extend to the region 
of first causes ; and Spiritualism, though by its proofs of what 
inferior spirits can do, it helps us to the grandest conceptions 
of a Supreme Spirit, to whom all the facts of the universe are 
known, is yet unable to lift the veil from that Power which is 
at once Ground and Cause of the universe and its phenomena ; 
impersonally immanent, (intra-mundane), automatic, evolu- 
tionary, and self-limited ; personally transcendent, (supra- 
mundane), conscious, omniscient, absolute and omnipotent ; 
the God in whom we live and move and have our being, 
and Our Father in Heaven ; the God of Pantheism and, in 
his higher hypostasis, the God of Theism also. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

From these abstruse though not irrelevant considerations, 
the course of our narrative leads us back to Miss Cook. 

She had begun to exhibit medial powers as early as 1870. 

In a letter to Mr. Harrison, dated May, 1872, she writes : 

"lam sixteen years of age. From my childhood I could 
see spirits and hear voices, and was addicted to sitting by 
myself talking to what I declared to be living people. As no 
one else could see or hear anything, my parents tried to make 
me believe it was all imagination, but I would not alter my 



HER DEVELOPMENT. 95 

belief, so was looked upon as a very eccentric child In the 
spring of 1870 I was invited to the house of a school-friend, 
whose name I am not at liberty to mention. She asked me if 
I had ever heard of spirit rapping, adding that her father, 
mother and self had sat at a table, and got movements, and 
that if I liked, they would try that evening." 

Miss Cook, though at first somewhat "horrifisd" at the 

idea, got her mother's consent and sat with her friends. She 

soon found that the raps followed her. A message was given 

to her from what purported to be the spirit of her aunt ; and 

then, she being left by herself at the table, it rose four feet. 

Miss Cook continues : 

" I went home astonished. Mamma and I went a few days 
after. We had some excellent tests of spirit identity given 
us ; still toe did not believe in spirits* At last it was spelt out 
that if we would sit in the dark I should be carried round the 
room. I Jau^iied, not thinking it would be done, and put out 
the light. The room was not perfectly dark, a light came in 
from the window. Soon I felt my chair taken from me. I 
was lifted up until I touched the ceiling. All in the room 
could see me. I felt too startled at my novel position to 
scream, and was carried over the heads of the sitters, and put 
gently on to a table at the other end of the room. Mamma 
asked if we could get manifestations at our own home. The 
table answered, ' Yes,' and that I was a medium. The next 
evening we sat at liome ; a table and two chairs were smashed, 
and a great deal of mischief done. We said we could never 
sit again, but we were not left in peace. Books and other 
articles were thrown at me, chairs walked about in the light, 
the table tilted violently at meal-times, and great noises were 
sometimes made at night. At last we sat again ; the table be- 
haved better, and a communication was given to the effect 
that we were to go to 74, Navarino-road, and that there was 
an association of Spiritualists there. Out of curiosity mamma 
and I went, and found we had been told quite correctly. Mr. 
Thomas Blyton came to a seance at our house ; he invited me 
to a seance"at Mr. Wilkes's library, in Dalston-lane. There 1 
met Mr. Harrison. He came to see the manifestations at my 
home. By this time we were convinced of the truth of spirit 
communion. About this time I was first entranced ; a spirit 
spoke through me, telling papa that if I sat with Messrs. 
Heme and Williams 1 should get the direct voice. I had sev- 
eral sittings with them, and finally succeeded in getting the 
direct voice, direct writing, and spirit touches. The presiding 
spirit of my circles is Katie, John King's daughter." 

* Hero is a touch of Nature, similar to that which Shakspeare makes 
manifest in the character of Hamlet. Just after he 1ms seen and conversed 
with the spirit of his father, Hamiet talks of "'that bourn from which no 
traveler returns. * ' Just after Miss Cook has told us that she used to ' ■ see 
spirits and hear voices, ' , she says, "still we did not believe in spirits. " 
Perhaps, however, all that she here meant was that she did not believe 
they were active in this particular instance. 



96 AN UNSPIRITUAL SPIRIT. 

Of the subsequent developments, the sittings with Mr. 
Heme, and the final appearance of Katie in full form, I have 
already given an account. 

Mr. Henry M. Dunphy relates that on one occasion, at a 
seance, Katie called for pencil and paper, saying she wanted 
to write a note. He produced a gold pencil-case with a 
double movement, one for producing the lead, and the other 
a pen. When handed to Katie, she unscrewed the little cap 
at the top, so as to scatter the leads on the carpet ; she laughed, 
screwed on the top again, and then wrote the follow mg mes- 
sage on a sheet of note-paper and threw it out : " I am much 
pleased that you have all come to-night at my invitation. — 
Annie Morgan." 

On another occasion Mr. Dunphy inquired whether Katie 
would put on a heavy gold ring which he took off his finger 
and offered to her. This she immediately took out of his 
hand and placed on her own wedding finger, saying naively, 
"We are now engaged." On his subsequently reaching with 
his hand to receive the ring, Katie allowed him to touch hers, 
and afterwards told him to touch her lips, which he did with 
his hands, and she imprinted on them a kiss. 

At another sitting, a passing remark having been made 
about lawyers, Katie asked whether her hearers knew what 
the Irish usher said when he was ordered to clear the court. 
" No," was the reply. " Well, then," said she, " he shouted, 
1 Now, then, all you blackguards who are not lawyers, leave 
the court.' " 

Trivial and unspiritual as some of these acts and expres- 
sions may seem, I quote them as having a bearing on the 
question of the intellectual calibre of these materialized 
spirits. 

Miss Emily Kislingbury, who has given considerable study 
to Miss Cook's mediumship, in a description of a seance at 
which she was present, Feb. 22d, 1873, remarks: "When 
Katie herself came and showed a fair-complexioned, large, 
massive face, and mouth set with brilliantly white teeth, I 
failed to see in it any resemblance to her medium ; and my 



PHOTOGRAPH OF KATIE. 97 

mother, who saw Katie for the first time, expressed her sur- 
prise that a comparison should ever have been made between 
them. I have, however, under more strict test conditions, 
seen in the spirit face a very striking resemblance to Miss 
Cook. . . . 

" A slow tune was played with great expression inside the 
cabinet. . . . Katie asked me, to my astonishment, to 
sing the song beginning 

1 Du bist die Kub\ der Friede mild, ' 

and she would follow me. * But,' said I, l Katie, you cannot 
sing the German words.' * Oh, can't I?' she said. ' My me- 
dium can't, but I am not so stupid'; you try me.' I sang the 
song through, and the same clear, bell-like voice again fol- 
lowed mine, pronouncing the German perfectly." 

In the spring of 1873 a series of sittings was held for the 
purpose of getting a photographic likeness of Katie. The 
photographing was done by Mr. Harrison whose close and in- 
telligent study of this remarkable case of materialization 
seems to have aided largely in the right development of Miss 
Cook's extraordinary powers. On the 7th of May a success- 
ful sitting was had, and no less than four photographs were 
taken. It is from one of the best of these that the engraving, 
which forms the frontispiece of this volume, was copied. 

"In the photograph itself," says Mr. Harrison, "the fea- 
tures are more detailed and beautiful, and there is an expres- 
sion of dignity and ethereality in the face which is not fully 
represented in the engraving, which, however, has been exe- 
cuted as nearly as possible with scientific accuracy, by an 
artist of great professional skill." 

In a statement signed by Amelia Corner, Caroline Corner, 
J. C. Luxmoore, G. R. Tapp, and W. H. Harrison, we have a 
clear and interesting account, which I here slightly abridge, 
of the process of getting a photograph of Katie by the magne- 
sium light : 

"The cabinet doors were placed open, and shawls hung 

across. The seance commenced at six p. m., and lasted about 

two hours, with an interval of half an hour. The medium 

was entranced almost directly she was placed in the cabinet, 

7 



98 PHOTOGRAPHING A SPIKIT-FOKM. 

and in a few minntes Katie stepped out into the room. The 
sitters, in addition to the undersigned, were Mrs. Cook and 
her two children, whose delight at Katie's familiarity with 
them was most amusing. 

" Katie was dressed in pure white, except that her robe was 
cut low, with short sleeves, allowing her beautiful neck and 
arms to be seen. Her head-dress was occasionally pushed 
back so as to allow her hair, which was brown, to be visible. 
Her eyes were large and bright, of a dark blue or gray color. 
Her countenance was animated and lifelike, her cheeks and 
lips ruddy and clear. 

"Our expressions of pleasure at seeing her thus before us 
seemed to encourage her to redouble her efforts to give a good 
seance. By the light of a candle and a small lamp, during the 
intervals of portography, she stood or moved about, and chat- 
ted to us all, keeping up a lively conversation, in which she 
criticised the sitters, and the literary photographer and his 
arrangements very freely. By degrees she walked away from 
the cabinet, and came boldly out into the room. 

"Katie usually leaned on the shoulder of Mr. Luxmoore, 
and stood up to' be focussed several times, on one occasion 
holding the lamp to illuminate her face. Once she looked at 
the sitters through Mr. Luxmoore's eye-glass. She patted his 
head, and pulled his hair, and allowed him and Mrs. Corner 
to pass their hands over her dress, in order that they might 
satisfy themselves that she wore only one robe. 

" As one of the plates was taken out of the room for devel- 
opment, she ran a few feet out of the cabinet after Mr. Harri- 
son, saying she wished to see it ; and on his return it was 
shown to her, he standing close to her and touching her at the 
time. While he was absent she walked up to the camera and 
inspected that ' queer machine,' as she called it. 

"Just before one of the plates was taken, as Katie was re- 
posing herself outside the cabinet, a long, sturdy, masculine 
right arm, bare to the shoulder, and moving its fingers, was 
thrust out of the opening at the top of the cabinet. Katie 
turned round and upbraided the intruder, saying that 'it was 
a shame for another spirit to interpose while she stood for her 
likeness/ and she bade him ' get out.' 

" Toward the close of the seance Katie said that her power 
was going, and that she was 'really melting away this time.' 
The power being weak, the admission of light into the cabinet 
seemed gradually to destroy the lower part of her figure, and 
she sank down until her neck touched the floor, the rest of her 
body having apparently vanished, her last words being that 
we must sing, and sit still for a few minutes, ' for it was a sad 
thing to have no legs to stand upon.' This was done, and 
Katie soon came out again, entire as at first, and one more 
photograph was successfully taken. Katie then shook hands 
with Mr. Luxmoore, went inside her cabinet, and rapped for 
us to take the medium out. 

"The seance had been given under strict test conditions. 
The only stipulation Katie made throughout was, that the sit- 
ters would not stare fixedly at her whilst she stood for her 
photograph. 



PRECAUTIONS AGAINST FRAUD. 99 

" Before commencing, Mrs. and Miss Corner took the me- 
dium to her bedroom, and, having taken off her clothes and 
thoroughly searched them, dressed *her without a gown, but 
simply with a cloak of dark gray waterproof cloth over her 
underclothing, and at once led her to the seance room, where 
her wrists were tied tightly together with tape. The knots 
weie examined by the sitters respectively, and sealed with a 
signet ring. She was then seated in the cabinet, which had 
been previously examined. The tape was passed through a 
brass bracket in the floor, brought under the shawl, and tied 
securely to a chair outside the cabinet, so that the slightest 
movement on the part of the medium would have been at 
once detected. 

" During the interval of half an hour, Mrs. Correr took 
charge of the medium, whilst she was out of the cabinet, and 
did not lose sight of her for one minute. The tying and seal- 
ing were repeated before the second part of the seance, and 
on each occasion of the medium leaving the cabinet, the 
knots and seals and tape were duly examined by all the sit- 
ters, and were found intact. The medium was tied and seal- 
ed by Mr. Luxmoore, whose signet ring was used." 

In a separate communication Mr. Luxmoore writes : 

" I carefully examined every part of the cabinet while Miss 
Cook was being searched by Mrs. and Miss Corner. Nothing 
could possibly have been concealed there without my discov- 
ering it. I should also mention, that, soon after one of the 
photographs had been taken, Katie pulled back the curtain, 
or rather rug, which hangs in front, and requested us to look 
at her, when she appeared to have lost all her body. She had 
a most curious appearance ; she seemed to be resting on noth- 
ing but her neck, her head being close to the floor. Her white 
robe was under her." 

Phenomena like these, as Dr. Wm. Hitch man aptly re- 
marks, present a question "not to be settled at all by leading 
articles, but by positive experimental testimony." In this 
case such testimony has been given in abundance. 

Previous to Prof. Crookes's taking the case in hand, Dr. 
Gully, Mr. Blackburn, Mr. Luxmoore, Mr. W. H. Harrison, 
and many other competent investigators had, at numerous 
seances, satisfied themselves fully that Katie and Miss Cook 
were distinct personalities. 

"All who attende'd these seances," says Dr. Gully, "are 
aware with what anxious care arrangements were always 
made by which th^ smallest movements by the medium with- 
in were rendered detectable by the sitters outside, by means 
of tapes attached to the medium's body, and extended along 



100 THE ELECTRICAL TEST. 

the floor, and held by some one present ; and, on one or two 
occasions, by the extension of the medium's own dark hair, 
not to mention the precise tying and sealing of the wrists. . . . 
These tests have abundantly satisfied me that the form which 
appears is not Miss Cook, but has a totally separate exist- 
ence." 

Notwithstanding these well-founded convictions there was 
a natural wish among Spiritualists that assurance should be 
made doubly sure, and in this wish no one joined more readi- 
ly than Dr. Gully. 

To determine the question whether Miss Cook was lying at 
rest inside the cabinet while Katie in her flowing robes was 
outside, Mr. C. F. Yarley, F. R. S., the electrician of the At- 
lantic Cable, noted for his skill in testing broken cables, con- 
ceived the idea of passing a weak electrical current through 
the body of the medium all the time the manifestations were 
going on. He did this by means of a galvanic battery and 
cable-testing apparatus, which was so delicate that any move- 
ment whatever, on the part of Miss Cook, would be instantly 
indicated, while it would be impossible for her to dress and 
play the part of the spirit without breaking the circuit and 
being instantly detected. 

Yet under these conditions the spirit-form did appear as 
usual, exhibited its arms, spoke, wrote, and touched several 
persons ; and this happened, be it remembered, not in the me- 
dium's own house, but in that of Mr. Luxmoore, at the West 
end of London. For nearly an hour the circuit was never 
broken, and at the conclusion Miss Cook was found in a 
trance. Thus it was clearly proved that Miss Cook was not 
only in the cabinet, but perfectly quiescent, while Katie was 
visible and moving about outside. 

Similar tests were soon repeated by Mr. Crookes in his own 
house with equally satisfactory results. Early in March he 
reported : " As far as the experiments go, they prove conclu- 
sively that Miss Cook is inside while Katie is outside the cabi- 
net," and he further testified to Miss Cook's perfect honesty, 
truthfulness, and willingness to submit to the severest testg 
that he could approve of. 



MR. CROOKES'S TESTIMONY. 101 

But the crowning proof was yet to come. On the 12th of 
March, 1874, during a seance at his own house, Katie came tG 
the cm tain, and called him to her, saying, " Come into the 
room and lift my medium's head up ; she has slipped down." 
Katie was then standing before him, clothed in her usual 
white robes and turban head-dress. He walked into the libra- 
ry up to Miss Cook, Katie stepping aside to allow him to pass. 
He found that Miss Cook had slipped partially off the sofa, 
and that her head was hanging in a very awkward position. 
He lifted her on to the sofa, and in so doing had satisfactory 
evidence, in spite of the darkness, that Miss Cook was not 
attired in the Katie costume, but had on her ordinary black 
velvet dress, and was in a deep trance. 

On the 29th of March, at a seance at Hackney, Katie told 
Mr. Crookes that she thought she should be able to show her- 
self and Miss Cook together. Turning the gas out, he enter- 
ed the room used as a cabinet, bearing a phosphorus lamp. 
This consisted of a six or eight ounce bottle, containing a 
little phosphorized oil, and tightly corked. 

It being dark, he felt about for Miss Cook. He found her 
crouching on the floor. Kneeling down, he let air enter the 
lamp, and by its light saw the young lady, dressed in black 
velvet, as she had been in the early part of the evening, and 
to all appearance senseless. She did not move when he took 
her hand and held the light close to her face, but continued 
quietly breathing. 

The remainder of the narrative I give in Mr. Crookes's own 
words : 

"Raising the lamp, I looked around and saw Katie stand- 
ing close behind Miss Cook. She was robed in flowing white 
drapery, as we had seen her previously during the seance. 
Holding one of Miss Cook's hands in mine, and still kneeling, 
I passed the lamp up and down, so as to illuminate Katie's 
whole figure, and satisfy myself thoroughly that I was really 
looking at the veritable Katie, whom I had clasped in my 
arms a few moments before, and not at the phantasm of a dis- 
ordered brain. 

"She did not speak, but moved her head, and smiled in 
recognition. Three separate times did I carefully examine 
Miss Cook, crouching before me, to be sure that the hand I 
held was that of a living woman, and three separate times did 



102 SPIRIT DRAPERY. 

I turn the lamp to Katie, and examine her with steadfaet 
scrutiny, until I had no doubt whatever of her objective 
reality." 

Of the points of difference between the two, Mr. Crookes 

says : 

" Katie's height varies; in my house I have seen her six 
inches taller than Miss Cook Last night, with bare feet and 
not tip-toeing, she was four and a half inches taller than Miss 
Cook. Katie's neck was bare last night ; the skin was per- 
fectly smooth, both to touch and sight, whilst on Miss Cook's 
neck is a large blister, which under similar circumstances is 
distinctly visible, and rough to the touch. Katie's ears are 
unpierced, whilst Miss Cook habitually wears ear-rings. 
Katie's complexion is very fair, while that of Miss Cook is 
very dark. Katie's fingers* are much longer than Miss Cook's, 
and her face is also larger. In manners and ways of expres- 
sion there are also many decided differences." 

The exceeding whiteness of the drapery with which Katie 
came clothed was always noticeable ; reminding the Scriptu- 
ral reader of that passage in Mark: " His raiment became 
shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth 
can white them." The dress would vary in shape nearly 
every evening. 

The fabric felt material enough. It did not melt away and 
disappear like the spirit fabrics felt by Mr. Livermore and 
Dr. Gray in the presence of Kate Fox. Miss Douglas took 
a specimen of the cloth to Messrs. Howell and James's, Lon- 
don, and asked them to match it ; they said that they could 
not, and that they believed it to be of Chinese manufacture. 

Whence came this white drapery ? As we proceed in our 
narrative, it will be seen that Mr. Crookes satisfied himself 
thoroughly that it could not have been brought into his house 
and used by the medium. 

Katie had announced, on several occasions, that her materi- 
alizations through Miss Cook would cease the 21st of May, 
1874. At one of her farewell seances, my friend, Mr. Cole- 
man, whom I had some years before introduced to certain 
phenomena m Boston, was present. He took from his pock- 
et a photograph ; Katie received it from his hands, and 
exclaimed, " This is Dr. Gully and my likeness. What do 
you want me to do with it?" " Write," said Mr. Coleman 



CUT PLACES MADE WHOLE. 103 

" your name, and any message you have to give me, on the 
back of it, that I may keep it in remembrance of this even* 
ing." Borrowing his pencil she wrote: "Annie Morgan, 
usually known as Katie King. To her dear friend, Mr. Ben. 
May 9th, 1874. " When it was read aloud some one said, 
"That is too familiar, " and she was reminded that there 
were others of the same name known to her ; upon which 
she asked for the card to be returned, and wrote : " Mr. Ben is 
B. Coleman, Esq." 

" During the evening," writes Mr. Coleman, " she frequent- 
ly went behind the curtain to look after her me^inm, and 
once whilst she was there, Mr. Crookes raised the curtain, 
and he and I, and four others who sat by me, saw, at one and 
the same time, the figure of Katie, clad in her white dress, 
bending over the sleeping form of the medium, whose dress 
was blue, with a red shawl over her head." This exhibition 
was then repeated, and Mr. Coleman was fully satisfied that 
he saw both the living form of Miss Cook, and the material- 
ized spirit-form of Katie. 

The following remarkable incident, which Mr. W. H, Har- 
rison and Mrs. Ross-Church (Florence Marryat) both con- 
firmed in subsequent narratives, indicates the thaumatur- 
gic power that was at work: " Taking up her skirt in a 
double fold, Mr. Crookes having lent her his scissors, Katie 
cut two pieces out of the front part, leaving the holes visible, 
one about an inch and the other two or three inches in cir- 
cumference, and then, as if by magic, but without the conju- 
rer's double boxes, or any attempt at concealment, she held 
that portion of the dress in her closed hand for a minute or 
two, and showed that the holes had disappeared, and that the 
dress was again entire. The pieces, a portion of which I 
have, are apparently strong ordinary white calico." 

Of the repetition of this marvel at a subsequent seance, 
Mr. W. H. Harrison writes : " After she had thus cut several 
great holes in her dress, as she sat between Mr. Crookes and 
Mr. Tapp, she was asked if she could mend it, as she had 
done on other occasions ; she then held up the dilapidated 



104 THE FAREWELL SEANCE. 

portion in a good light, gave it one flap, and it was instantly 
as perfect as at first. Those near the door of the cabinet ex- 
amined and handled it immediately, with her permission, and 
testified there was no hole, seam or joint of any kind, 
where a moment before had been large holes, several inches 
in diameter. " 

Mrs. Ross-Church (Florence Marryat), a daughter of my 
old acquaintance, Captain Marryat, author of " Peter Simple," 
&c , was a witness of the same incident, and mentions it in 
an account of her experiences, which I shall soon quote. 

The following is Mr. W. H. Harrison's account of the farewell 
seance, May 21st, 1874, in London, at which Katie appeared. 
There were present Mr. Crookes, Mrs. Corner, Mrs. Ross- 
Church, Mr. W. H. Harrison, Mr. G. R. Tapp, Mr. and Mrs. 
Cook and family, and the servant Mary : 

"Mr. Crookes, 7.25 p. m., conducted Miss Cook into the 
dark room used as a cabinet, where she laid herself down up- 
on the floor, with her head resting on a pillow ; at 7.28 Katie 
first spoke, and at 7.30 came outside the curtain in full form. 
She was dressed in pure white, with low neck and short 
sleeves. She had long hair, of a light auburn or golden color, 
which hung in ringlets down her back, and each side of her 
head, reaching nearly to her waist. She wore a long white 
veil, but tins was only drawn over her face once or twice dur- 
ing the seance. 

" The medium was dressed in a high gown of light blue me- 
rino. During nearly the whole of the seance, while Katie was 
before us, the curtain was drawn back and all could clearly 
see the sleeping medium, who did not stir from her original 
position, but lay quite still, her face being covered with a red 
shawl to keep light from it. There was a good light during 
the entire seance. 

"Katie talked about her approaching departure, and ac- 
cepted a bouquet which Mr. Tapp brought her, also some 
bunches of lilies from Mr. Crookes. 

"All the sitters in the circle clustered closely round her. 
Katie asked Mr. Tapp to take the bouquet to pieces, and lay 
the flowers out before her on the floor ; she then sat down, 
Eastern fashion, and asked all to draw around her, which was 
done, most of those present sitting on the floor at her feet. 
She then divided the flowers into bunches for each, tying 
them up with blue ribbon. She also wrote parting notes to 
some of her friends, signed ' Annie Owen Morgan/ which she 
stated was her real name when in earth-life. She wrote a 
note for her medium, and selected a fine rosebud for her as a 
parting gift. 

" Katie then took a pair of scissors and cut off a quantity of 



TESTIMONY OF MRS. ROSS-CHURCH. 105 

her hair, giving everybody present a liberal portion. She 
then took the arm of Mr Crookes and walked all round the 
room, shaking hands with each. She again sat down and dis- 
tributed some of her hair ; and also cut off and presented sev- 
eral pieces of her robe and veil. . . . 

"She then appeared tired, and said reluctantly that she 
must go, as the power was failing, and bade farewell in the 
most affectionate way. The sitters all wished her God speed, 
and thanked her for the wonderful manifestations she had 
given. Looking once more earnestly at her friends she let 
the curtain fall and she was seen no more. She was heard to 
wake up the medium, who tearfully entrpated her to stay a 
little longer, but Katie said, ' My dear, I can't. My work is 
done. God bless you,* and we heard the sound of her parting 
kiss. The medium then came out among us, looking much 
exhausted and deeply troubled. 

" Katie said that she should never be able to speak or show 
her face again ; that she had had a weary and sad three years' 
life ' working off her sins ' in producing these physical mani- 
festations, and that she was about to rise higher in spirit- life. 
At long intervals she might be able to communicate with her 
medium by writing, but at any time her medium might be en- 
abled to see her clairvoyantly t>y being mesmerized." 

Mrs. Ross-Church (Florence Marryat), who had been pres- 
ent at three of Katie's last seances, on the 9th, 13th and 21st 
of May, 1874, in a letter to the London Spiritualist, wrote as 
follows : 

11 1 will not recapitulate what so many have told of the ap- 
pearance of the spirit * Katie King,' nor of the means taken to 
prevent any imposition on the part of her medium. This has 
all been repeated again and again, and as often disbelieved. 
But I find Serjeant Cox, in his late letter on the subject of 
Miss Showers's mediumship, saying that could such an end 
be attained as a simultaneous sight of the apparition outside 
the curtain and the medium within, 'the most wonderful fact 
the world has ever witnessed would be established beyond 
controversy.' Perhaps Serjeant Cox would consider a sight 
of both medium and spirit in the same room and at the same 
time as convincing a proof of stern truth, I have seen that 
sight. 

"On the evening of the 9th of May, Katie King led me, at 
my own request, into the room with her beyond the curtain, 
which was not so dark but that 1 could distinguish surround- 
ing objects, and then made me kneel down by Miss Cook's 
prostrate form, and feel her hands and face and head of curls, 
whilst she (the spirit) held my other hand in hers, and leaned 
against my shoulder, with one arm around my neck. 

"I have not the slightest doubt that upon that occasion 
there were present with me two living, breathing intelli- 
gences, perfectly distinct from each other, so far at least as 
their bodies were concerned. If my senses deceived me ; if I 
was misled by imagination or mesmeric influence into belie v- 



106 TESTIMONY OF MRS. BOSS CHURCH. 

ing that I touched and felt two bodies, instead of one ; if 
'Katie King,' who grasped, and embraced, and spoke to 
me, is a projection of thought only — a will-power — an in- 
stance of unknown force — then it will be no longer pos- 
sible to know 'Who 's who, in 1874,' and we shall hesitate to 
turn up the gas incautiously, lest half our friends should 
be but projections of thought, and melt away beneath its 
glare. 

"Whatever Katie King was on the evening of the 9th of 
May, she was not Miss Cook. To that fact I am ready to 
take my most solemn oath. She repeated the same experi- 
ment with me on the 13th, and on that occasion we had the 
benefit of mutual sight also, as the whole company were in- 
vited to crowd around the door whilst the curtain was with- 
drawn and the gas turned up to the full, in order that we 
might see the medium, in her blue dress and scarlet shawl, 
lying in a trance on the floor, whilst the white-robed spirit 
stood beside her. 

"On the 21st, however, the occasion of Katie's last appear- 
ance amongst us, she was good enough to give me what I con- 
sider a still more infallible proof (if one could be needed) of 
the distinction of her identity from that of her medium. 
When she. summoned me in my turn to say a few words to 
her behind the curtain, I again saw and touched the warm, 
breathing body of Floience Cook lying on the floor, and then 
stood upright by the side of Katie, who desired me to place 
my hands inside the loose single garment which she wore, and 
feel her nude body. I did so, thoroughly. 

"I felt her heart beating rapidly beneath my hand ; and 
passed my fingers through her long hair to satisfy myself that 
it grew from her head, and can testify that if she be ' of psy- 
chic force,' psychic force is very like* a woman. 

"Katie was very busy that evening. To each of her friends 
assembled to say good by, she gave a bouquet of flowers tied 
up with ribbon, 'a piece of her dress and veil, and a lock of her 
hair, and a note which she wrote with her pencil before us. 
Mine was as follows! 'From Annie Owen de Morgan {alias 
Katie King) to her friend, Florence Marry at Ross- Church, 
with love. Pensez a moi. May 21st, 1874.' I must not forget 
to relate what appeared to me to be one of the most convinc- 
ing i^roofs of Katie's more than natural power, namely, that 
when she had cut, before our eyes, twelve or fifteen different 
pieces of cloth from the front of her white tunic, as souvenirs 
for her friends, there was not a hole to be seen in it, examine 
it which way you would. It was the same with her veil, and 
I have seen her do the same thing several times. 

"1 think if in the face of all this testimony that has been 
brought before them, the faithless and unbelieving still credit 
Miss Cook with the superhuman agility required to leap from 
the spirit's dress into her own like a flash of lightning, they 
will hardly suppose her capable of re- weaving the material of 
her clothing in the same space of time. If they can believe 
that, they will not find the spiritualistic doctrine so hard a nut 
to crack afterwards. But I did not take up my pen to argue 
this point, but simply to relate what occurred to myself." 



PHOTOGRAPHS OF KATIE. 107 

During the week before Katie took her departure, she gave 
seances at Mr. Crookes's house almost nightly, to enable him 
to photograph her by artificial light. In a letter dated July 
21st, 1874, and enclosing two photographs, he writes me : 
" You may be interested in seeing one of my photographs of 
Katie, as she stood holding my arm ; also one in which she is 
standing by herself." In the former of these the person of 
Katie, nearly to her ankles, dressed in her white robe, is 
taken ; in the other, not quite so much of the figure is seen. 
In both photographs, the drapery is gracefully disposed ; the 
countenance is placid, and the features finely formed, though 
it might not require much imagination to discover in tbeir gen- 
eral expression a spectral look ; the figure has all the distinct- 
ness of a veritable human being, there being nothing shadowy 
in the outlines. 

Taken in his own laboratory, and under conditions the 
most satisfactory and unquestionable, these and some forty 
other photographs which he took, some inferior, some indif- 
ferent, and some excellent, confirmed all the previous tests 
which Mr. Crookes had got of the genuineness of the phe- 
nomenon. Frequently, at his own house, he would follow 
Katie into the cabinet, and would sometimes see her and her 
medium together, though generally he would find nobody but 
the entranced medium lying on the floor, Katie and her white 
robes having instantaneously disappeared. 

During a period of six months Miss Cook was a frequent 
visitor at Mr. Crookes's house, remaining there sometimes a 
week at a time. She would bring nothing but a little hand- 
bag, not locked. During the day she would be constantly in 
the presence of Mrs. or Mr. Crookes, or some other member 
of his family ; and, not sleeping by herself, there was no con- 
ceivable opportunity for any fraudulent preparation. 

" It was a common thing," says Mr. Crookes, "for the 
seven or eight of us in the laboratory to see Miss Cook and 
Katie at the same time under the full blaze of the electric 
light. We did not on these occasions actually see th e face of 
the medium, because of the shawl (which had been thrown 



108 MR. CROOKES'S TESTIMONY. 

over to prevent the light from falling on the face), but we 
saw her hands and feet, we saw her move uneasily under the 
influence of the intense light, and we heard her moan occa- 
sionally. I have one photograph of the two together, but 
Katie is seated in front of Miss Cook's head." 

On one occasion Mr. Crookes was photographed with Katie, 
she having her bare foot on a particular part of the floor ; 
their relative height was ascertained. Mr. Crookes was then 
photographed with Miss Cook under precisely similar condi- 
tions, and while the two photographs of himself coincide ex- 
actly in stature, etc., Miss Cook's figure is found to be half a 
head shorter than Katie's, and looks small in comparison. 

" Photography," adds Mr. Crookes, " is as inadequate to 
depict the perfect beauty of Katie's face, as words are power- 
less to describe her charms of manner. Photography may, 
indeed, give a map of her countenance ; but how can it re- 
produce the brilliant purity of her complexion, or the ever- 
varying expression of her most mobile features, now overshad- 
owed with sadness when relating some of the bitter experi- 
ences of her past life, now smiling with all the innocence of 
happy girlhood when she had collected my children around 
her, and was amusing them by recounting anecdotes of her 
adventures in India." 

The following particulars given by Mr. Crookes, as to the 
differences between Katie and the medium, will be found of 
interest : 

" Having seen so much of Katie lately, when she has been 
illuminated by the electric light, I am enabled to add to the 
points of difference between her and her medium which I 
mentioned in a former article. I have the most absolute cer- 
tainty that Miss Cook and Katie are two separate individuals 
as far as their bodies are concerned. Several little marks or 
Miss Cook's face are absent on Katie's. Miss Cook's hair is 
so dark a brown as almost to appear black ; a lock of Katie's 
which is now before me, which she allowed me to cut from 
her luxuriant tresses, having first traced it up to the scalp 
and satisfied myself that it actually grew there, is a rich 
golden auburn. 

" On one evening I timed Katie's pulse. It beat steadily at 
75, while Miss Cook's pulse, a little time after, was going at 
its usual rate of 90. On applying my ear to Katie's chest I 
could hear a heart beating rhythmically inside, and pulsating 



MR. CROOKES'S TESTIMONY. 109 

even more steadily than did Miss Cook's heart when she al- 
lowed me to try a similar experiment after the seance. Test- 
ed in the same way, Katie's lungs were found to be sounder 
than her medium's, for at the time I tried my experiment 
Miss Cook was under medical treatment for a severe cough." 

Of the final parting of Miss Cook and Katie, Mr. Crookes 



"Having concluded her directions, Katie invited me into 
the cabinet with her, and allowed me to remain there to the 
end. After closing the curtain she conversed with me for 
some time, and then walked across the room to where Miss 
Cook was lying senseless on the floor. Stooping over her, 
Katie touched her and said, ' Wake up, Florrie, wake up ! I 
must leave you now.' Miss Cook then woke and tearfully 
entreated Katie to stay a little time longer. ' My dear, I can't ; 
my work is done. God bless you !' replied Katie, and then 
continued speaking to Miss Cook. For several minutes the 
two were conversing with each other, till at last Miss Cook's 
tears prevented* her speaking. Following Katie's instruc- 
tions, I then came forward to support Miss Cook, who was 
falling on to the floor, sobbing hysterically. 1 looked around, 
but the white-robed Katie had gone. As soon as Miss Cook 
was sufficiently calmed a light was procured and I led her out 
of the cabinet." 

Thus ended this extraordinary series of seances, verifying 
the stupendous fact of the power of spirits to manifest them- 
selves in a temporarily materialized human form. To Miss 
Cook's honesty and good faith Mr. Crookes bears witness in 
the strongest terms. Every test he proposed she readily sub- 
mitted to ; she was open and straightforward in speech, and 
never did he see in her conduct anything approaching the 
slightest symptom of a wish to deceive. 

" To imagine," he says, " that a school-girl of fifteen should 
be able to conceive and then successfully carry out for three 
years so gigantic an imposture as this, and in that time should 
submit to any tests which might be imposed upon her, should 
bear the strictest scrutiny, should be willing to be searched 
at any time, either before or after a seance, and should meet 
with even better success in my own house than at that of her 
parents, knowing that she visited me with the express object 
of submitting to strict scientific tests— to imagine, I say, the 
* Katie King ' of the last three years to be the result of im- 
posture—does more violence to one's reason and common 
sense than to believe her to be what she herself affirms." 



110 IMMORTALITY. 

When to these considerations is added the fact that the 
phenomena through Miss Cook have been recently paralleled 
and even surpassed by numerous similar well-attested phe- 
nomena, not only in England, but in America, what escape 
is there from the conclusion that they are wholly inexplicable 
under any theory of imposture or delusion ? 



CHAPTER IX. 

By immortality I mean that exemption from death, of which 
we have the assurance in the spiritual body as a ground of 
continuous life. The spiritual organism is demonstrated not 
merely in the proof palpable, presented in the appearance of 
spirits in the human form, and by the attestations of spirits 
and mediums, but in the facts of clairvoyance, showing pow- 
ers in the human being independent of the corresponding 
physical organs and requiring other and supersensual organs.* 

Proofs of a future existence do not necessarily involve 
proofs of a perpetual existence. A discussion of the latter is 
not pertinent to my present purpose. But I may here remark 
that faith in our own everlastingness must depend largely on 
faith in the eternity of a supreme benign intelligence whence 
comes "the order of the universe. 

If we are at the mercy of blind, unconscious cosmic forces, 
of a mere "orrery," in the working of which neither mind 
nor love is active, we may feel, in the next stage of being as 
well as in this, that life is no assured possession. But to this 
subject I hope to return before I close. 

The phenomena being admitted as actual and genuine, is it 
consistent with the laws of science to seek their cause ? 

"Of the efficient causes of phenomena," says J. S. Mill, 

* For an abundance of facts proving: clairvoyance, prevision, and many 
other supersensual phenomena, see • k Planchette, the Despair of Science, ' • 
by Epes Sargent. Boston: Roberts Brothers. It has not been thought 
necessary to repeat these facts in the present work. 



PHENOMENON AND CAUSE. Ill 

"or whether any such causes exist, I am not called upon to 
give an opinion." 

Mr. Mill acknowledges empirical causes only. 

Well : the phenomena of Spiritualism force upon us the ques- 
tion of empirical causes ; of causes fairly within the domain of 
science and experiment. When a solid figure in the human 
form, clothed and manifesting life and intelligence, melts 
away and disappears, and subsequently re-forms, before our 
sight, surely the phenomenon is one, the consideration of the 
cause of which is a legitimate inquiry of science. The philos- 
ophy of experience is the last which should deny this declara- 
tion ; for to refuse to admit that there may be an empirical 
cause for the phenomenon in this case is purely an a priori as- 
sumption, to fall back on which is to abandon the whole 
philosophy of experience. 

As the testimony in support of this amazing phenomenon 
cannot be too complete, I will quote, in addition to what I 
have already given, a description of their experiences by two 
highly competent witnesses. The first, Mr. A. B. Crosby, of 
Gold Hill, North Carolina, is, as I learn from my friend and 
neighbor John Wetherbee, a man scientifically educated, a 
graduate of Waterville College, and a careful observer. He 
writes to Mr. W., under date of August 7th, 1874, the follow- 
ing very clear and concise description of the phenomenon : 

"I stopped on my way, at Philadelphia, and while there I 
saw the ' Katie King ' manifestation, at No. 50 North Ninth 
street. There were about thirty persons present at the se- 
ance. The cabinet was a wooden partition across one corner 
of the room, the carpet of which extended to the extreme cor- 
ner. There was a door in the partition and two apertures. 
Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, the mediums, sat outside the cabinet, 
and next to it, and were both in sight all the time. It is ne- 
cessary for you to remember that, and also that the room was 
light enough all the time to see distinctly the persons present 
— about thirty. They sat in the form of a horse shoe, at each 
end of which sat a medium, which would be at each side 
of the cabinet. After some music and singing— about twenty 
minutes — we saw two delicate hands appear at the aperture 
over the door, then a face, rather dim, at the other aperture. 
After a short time, devoted to gathering strength from the 
circle, the door of the cabinet opened and a beautiful young 
lady, dressed in white, with a dark girdle and slippers, walked 
out into the centre of this circle. She had in her hands bou- 



112 MORE TESTIMONY 

quets of flowers, which she held to the noses of many of the 
audience. She spoke to several in a weak voice. She went 
into and out of the cabinet several times ; finally, she retired 
to the door of the cabinet and disappeared, gradually, until only 
a bright spot could be seen on the carpet. In less tlian a minute 
she began to reappear, and in a short time walked out into the 
room apparently a veritable living person, as palpable as you 
or I ; I think, for the time we saw her, that she was flesh, like 
us. I thought her person had a slight phosphorescent glow, 
because the shadows of the folds of her dress were very feeble, 
more of the character of a diffused light. I cannot conceive 
of what I saw being any trick ; I know it was not, and you 
know what that means when 1 say it, and I am now a Spirit- 
ualist." 

Dr. Raue, of Philadelphia, a physician of the highest stand- 
ing, was present at the seance of August 9th, 1874. He as- 
sured himself by a close examination that there was no inlet or 
outlet to the cabinet. The two mediums remained outside 
among the spectators. After some music the curtains of the 
holes in the partition were raised, and several hands became 
visible. Soon a whole arm appeared, and as in salutation was 
waved to and fro in a graceful manner. Katie shook hands 
from the window with those who went up to it. She talked, 
too, repeatedly ; for instance, she answered the question of 
" How do you like the present company?" by "I '11 tell you 
after awhile ;" and, later, " I love you all." At another time 
she said, " I feel now as natural as when I was in earth-life." 
Her voice was mild and somewhat whispering. Of her issu- 
ing from the cabinet in a full materialized form, Dr. R. says : 

"The door opened and Katie appeared, slowly moving her 
hands, as though saluting or declaiming, and clad in a taste- 
ful white robe, and a mantilla of gauze or lace. Her waist 
was encircled by a belt, fastened with a gold clasp or 
buckle. At her throat appeared a gold cross, or similar orna- 
ment. Afterwards she emerged entirely from the closet, sat 
down upon a chair next to Mrs. Holmes, rose and receded 
slowly into the closet again. 

" The question was then put to her whether she could not 
show us how she materialized herself, and was again answer- 
ed by * I will try/ After awhile the door of the closet open- 
ed once more, and we saw, in the right corner of it, a kind of 
gray mist, or cloud, from which, within a short time, Katie's 
whole figure was developed in a wonderful manner. Her dis- 
appearance was similar : it was a gradual fading and dissolv- 
ing. The white figure teas not illumined by external light, but 
had a peculiar blueish-white and brilliant splendor, that seemed 
to come from within. I do not believe that any mixture ol 



THE PROOF PALPABLE. 113 

earthly colors would be able to produce the same effect The 
gold of the belt-buckle and the necklace appeared more gold- 
en than the finest gold." 

Here was a proof palpable— but of what ? Surely of im- 
mortal spirit, whether we call it psychic force, or independ- 
ent spirit power. Admitting that there was no delusion — 
and the reader who has carefully weighed the testimony I 
have adduced will hardly adopt so insufficient a theory as 
that of fraud or deception — what can it be but an intelligence 
and a will, exercising, throtigh some centripetal and centrifu- 
gal use of the invisible constituents of matter, the astonishing 
power of materializing and de-materializing a human form 
with its appropriate clothing ? 

An intelligence and a will ! And this intelligence pro- 
claims itself a spirit! And this will proves the claim by 
causing an animated body in human shape to vanish and re- 
appear ! If such a power does not answer the full significa- 
tion which men in all ages have attached to the word spirit, 
as representative of the life of a man after the dissolution of 
his earth-body, I am at a loss to know what further evidence 
can be given under the present limitations of our human fac- 
ulties. 

But this spirit, we are told, is very unspiritual, and does 
not always speak the truth. 

If a man having the Caucasian features and form, and 
speaking our language, were cast upon our shores from the 
sea, we should readily take his word for it that he was an es- 
caped English or American mariner. He might prove in 
many other things untruthful and inconsistent, but we should 
have little doubt that he was a man, and of a certain nation- 
ality. 

So when a man in the human form presents himself as a 
materialized spirit, and proves it, not only by the intelligence 
of his conversation and acts, but by dissolving and re-con- 
creting his corporeal envelope before our eyes, and by mani- 
festing his powers, in other ways, as invisible force and intel- 
ligence, surely we have here a proof palpable, which no mis- 
representations or mistakes, on his part, in regard to other 
8 



114 MR. OWEN'S TESTIMONY. 

questions, could impair, that he is what he claims to be, 
namely, what we understand by a spirit. 

Skepticism, it is true, can find room for cavil even here, but 
so it can find room to cavil at the reality of our own terres- 
trial existence ; and yet we go on, and eat, drink, sleep, 
think, and enjoy ourselves, in spite of all the subtleties by 
which it would prove that we are under a mistake. 

That the phenomena have a cause, must be conceded as a 
postulate of human reason. The theories of imposture and 
delusion being dismissed, what sufficient cause can be assign- 
ed but that which the spirits themselves bear witness to, and 
that which human experience, in all ages of the world and 
among all tribes and nations, has accepted? 

Although in December, 1874, charges of fraud were brought 
against Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, in consequence of which Mr. 
Owen and Dr. Child withdrew their confidence, the phe- 
nomena through Mrs. Holmes were satisfactorily tested 
throughout the year 1875, not only by Messrs. Lippitt and 
Olcott, but by Mr. J. M. Roberts, all gentlemen personally 
known to me. A Mrs. White, instigated, it is believed, by 
persons wishing to throw discredit on the phenomena, de- 
clared that she had been engaged by Mr. Holmes to play the 
part of Katie King. That she stood for a photograph of 
the spirit was true. Certain letters in Mr. Holmes's hand- 
writing, which were not at first satisfactorily explained, gave 
color to her other claims. But it was in the end conclusively 
proved : first, that Mrs. White's word was entitled to no 
credit ; secondly, that the manifestations could be produced 
without her or any other confederate ; and thirdly, that the 
evidences of fraud were incomplete. For these reasons, and 
because the testimony of Mr. Crosby and Dr. Raue has not 
been retracted, I have allowed it to stand as it appeared in 
the first edition of this work. Even Mr. Owen, after with- 
drawing the testimony he had given in behalf of the phe- 
nomena, declared that "the Holmes case, instead of disprov- 
ing or casting doubt upon the phenomenon of materialization, 
does prove it conclusively." 



ME. KELSO'S TESTIMONY. 115 

The Holmes case made a great noise at the time, and was 
looked upon by the larger part of the uninformed public as 
invalidating all the phenomena ; but it owed its importance 
to the reputation of Mr. Owen as a public man of tried in- 
tegrity and an author of note. He had testified so earnestly 
to the facts that, although he remained as firm a believer as 
ever in the truth involved, the hostile newspapers, when he re- 
pudiated the manifestations in this single case, were jubilant 
over the event, and it was regarded as conclusive even against 
Spiritualism itself. Subsequent developments have shown 
how unwarrantable and exaggerated was the importance 
given to the affair. The materialization phenomena have so 
multiplied, have grown to be so complex and common, that 
the detection in fraud of any one medium, however conspicu- 
ous, cannot invalidate the general fact. 

As our experience in dealing with these novel phenomena 
increases, moreover, we begin to learn that susceptible me- 
diums, through sinister mesmeric influences exerted upon 
them either by operating spirits or by persons in a circle, may 
automatically do things which unskilled investigators at once 
set down as frauds sufficient to invalidate all proofs, however 
ample, of previous genuine phenomena. 

These considerations may explain why it is that there are 
so few mediums who have not, at some time in their career, 
been charged with imposture. 

Under date of Terre Haute, Ind., Oct. 27th, and Nov. 10th, 
1875, Mr. Isaac Kelso, a well-known Unitarian clergyman, 
and an experienced student of the phenomena, gives an ac- 
count of a sitting, at which Mrs. Anna Stewart was the me- 
dium. He says : 

" The light is turned down, but not so far as to make it pos- 
sible lor any confederate to enter the cabinet without being 
seen. By and- by one wing of the cabinet door slowly opens, 
and out steps a slight but beautiful figure, robed in pure white 
garments, looking a giilof about seventeen ; not quite so tall 
as the medium, but with a step more elastic. Pausing an in- 
stant near the threshold, she says, 'Good evening,' in the 
softest imaginable tones, then, turning round, throws open 
the other wing of the cabinet door, showing us the medium 
sitting in a chair, apparently asleep, and deadly pale." 



116 THE PEOOF PALPABLE. 

A stranger suggested to Mr. Kelso that it was a deception; 
whereupon the entranced medium lifted her arm and waved 
a white handkerchief. "Ah, the thing is a machine, moved 
by wires," persisted the skeptic in an undertone. Going at 
once to the medium the figure in white raised her to her feet, 
brought her out of the cabinet, and stood side by side with 
her. After describing a second apparition, that of a tall male 
figure, Mr. Kelso resumes : 

"Finally the figure in white came out again. I requested 
her to give us the best proof she could that she was not a 
mortal like ourselves. Alter expressing a willingness to try, 
she called for a pair of scissors, which, being furnished, she 
handed to me ; then kneeling down before me, requested that 
I should cut a lock of hair from her head. . . . The ap- 
parition threw her long raven tresses forward, allowing me to 
make my own selection. Cutting off a large lock, close to 
the scalp', I drew it carelully through my hand, then passed it 
to others ; it was handed round ; perhaps a dozen persons ex- 
amined it ; alter this it was returned to the apparition, who 
remained in her kneeling posture close by me. Taking the 
hair into her hands, she stretched it out, laid it on a white 
handkerchief right under my eyes, and in full view of all the 
company, theniolded the handkerchief over it. Having done 
this, she retired within the cabinet and closed the door, which 
placed her at the distance of at least nine feet from the hair. 

4i While the door was yet closed the handkerchief deliber- 
ately unfolded as if lifted by invisible fingers, and the hair 
began to move. I now placed the fingers of my right hand 
upon the carpet, slowly and carefully sweeping them entirely 
round the handkerchief, thus making it doubly sure that no 
fine thread or wire connected the hair in any way with the 
being from whose head I had clipped it. Very soon the lock 
of hair bounded from the handkerchief on to the carpet, and 
began moving toward the cabinet. Before it reached the 
threshold the apparition opened the door and came out. The 
hair leaped upon her white skirt, and slowly climbed to her 
shoulder ; thence it sprang to her crown, and seemed to plant 
itself upon the very spot from which it had been taken.' ' 

A lady of my acquaintance, Mrs. H. B. Webster, a daugh- 
ter of Croly, the poet, author of "Catiline," &c, after de- 
scribing some phenomena that took place in Florence, Italy 
(July, 1874), through the mediumship of Mr. D. D. Home, 
remarks as follows : 

" One asks one's self, of what nature can be the eyes and 
ears and the flesh and blood of the individual who can see 
eight or ten hands come out from under his own dining- 
cloth, while the hands of every visible individual present are 
staring him in the face, and can feel the living pressure of 



CKEDULITY OF SKEPTICISM. 117 

the flexible human fingers clasping him, and question for a 
single instant what they are? True it is that there are per- 
sons, clever and intelligent in all other respects, who, when 
their prejudices or preconceived ideas are thwarted, seem to 
have the faculty of shutting their eyes to all facts, and their 
minds to all logic, no matter how palpable. Thus a very dis- 
tinguished and gifted Englishman told me the other evening, 
in the presence of several others, that at a seance with Mr. 
Home a hand and arm projecting from a white cloud de- 
scended from above in the full view of seven or eight per- 
sons, and first touching Mr. Home's head, then touched him- 
self on the forehead. 'But/ said the gentleman in con- 
clusion, ' What does that prove? The hand might have been 
& force. Who assures me it came from a spirit?' To argu- 
ing of this description there is no answer possible, except, 
perhaps, that of Mr. Home himself, who remarked that in 
such a case we may all be, ourselves, nothing but forces also!' 1 

Home's reply is apt and sufficient. To suppose that a mere 
force, independent of the will or knowledge of the medium 
exercising it, announcing itself as a distinct individuality 
and conducting like one, and yet nothing all the while but an 
emanation from the medium, can go forth from the latter, in- 
carnate itself partially or wholly, clothe itself appropriately 
and instantaneously in garments woven apparently out of 
nothingness, converse, argue, sing, walk, dance, write, play 
on instruments, and then suddenly vanish, while the medi- 
um, in the possession of all his faculties, is looking on and 
believing it a separate personality— is obviously to suppose 
something far more miraculous and incredible than a direct 
manifestation by a returning spirit. 

It may be asked : " Under the theory of a spiritual body co- 
existent with the natural, may not the spirit of a person still 
in the earth-life manifest itself thus objectively?" That it can 
do so we have good reason to believe ; but if it can thus separate 
itself from the living earth-body, why should the dissolution 
of the latter limit the spirit's power of manifestation ? Ought 
not its power to be increased rather than diminished by the 
severing of a tie which must be more a limitation than a 
help? 

The proof palpable of immortality is the culmination of 
other cognate proofs, in themselves a sufficient assurance of 
the existence in man of a supersensual, spiritual nature. 



118 PHENOMENAL PROOFS. 

Death is not disorganization, but change. The caterpilla* 
does not lose himself in passing to the butterfly, neither does 
man lose himself in leaving a physical organism for a spirit- 
ual. 

There is undoubtedly a force, call it psychic, odic, or spirit- 
ual, which is a property of man's duplicate organism. It 
may be manifested in various ways during the earth-life of 
the individual ; it may be the agent in many phenomena not 
explicable by the agency of the normal powers of terrestrial 
man; but there is a large class of phenomena which are 
more rationally explained by the intervention of spirits that 
have parted from their mortal bodies. 

The testimony of the spirits themselves and of entranced 
and clairvoyant mediums, from whose organisms they bor- 
row a certain power facilitating manifestation, must carry 
some weight ; nor is the fact that both spirits and mediums 
are fallible and often deceptive, sufficient to impair wholly 
the value of such assurance. 

But apart from this testimony, we have all the proof that 
our senses can give, and in addition, the proofs of an intelli- 
gence and a power that cannot be credited to our known and 
normal faculties. 

Mrs. Louisa Andrews, from whose testimony in regard to the 
materialization phenomena I have already quoted, records the 
following incident : "At a late sitting in Moravia, where 
there were many in the circle anxiously hoping to see friends 
and relatives, a young man appeared whom no one knew. 
After showing himself for a moment, he spoke, giving his 
name as Freeman Kelly. No one recognized the name or the 
face. He then spoke again with apparent effort, saying, ' I 
passed away in Ithaca ;' and he added, in a low but very im- 
pressive voice, 'Let all men know that this is true' 

"On my return to Ithaca, I found, on inquiry, that a man 
bearing this name, and described as resembling the spirit we 
had seen, died last spring (1872). He had promised some 
friends living in this place that if he should go first, and if 
spirit returns were possible, he would come and testify to the 



MENTAL AND PHYSICAL PROOFS. 119 

fact. These friends were not present when he redeemed his 
promise, but received his communication through the lips of 
those who heard it." 

Dr. Edwin Lee, in his " Report upon the Phenomena of 
Clairvoyance" (London, 1843), mentions the case of the pre- 
diction of the death of the King of Wurtemberg by two differ- 
ent somnambulists; the one having foretold the event four 
years beforehand ; the other, in the spring of the same year 
having mentioned the exact day, in the month of October, as 
also the disease (apoplexy). "The exact coincidence," says 
Dr. Lee, " of the event with the predictions, is not doubted at 
Stuttgard ; and a fortnight ago Dr. Klein, who is now in Eng- 
land, accompanying the Crown Prince of Wurtemberg, hav- 
ing been introduced to me, I took the opportunity of asking 
him about the circumstance, which he acknowledged was as 
has been stated, saying, moreover, that his father was physi- 
cian to the King, who, on the morning of the day on wnich 
the attack occurred, was in very good health and spirits." 

Mr. Clark Irvine, a respectable lawyer of Oregon, Holt 
County, Missouri, of whose visit to Dr. Slade I have already 
spoken, in the third chapter of this work, writes me some 
particulars of this and other experiences, which include some 
noteworthy facts. He was wholly unknown to Dr. Slade, the 
medium, and came upon him unprepared. While he sat in a 
chair in the light and Dr. Slade sat at some distance from him, 
Mr. Irvine felt an invisible spirit hand which he grasped. He 
held on to it tightly, and the hand, after pulling violently, 
gave a few spasmodic jerks and then seemed to melt away, his 
fingers gradually closing together as though holding some dis- 
solving substance. 

While himself holding a slate close up under and against 
the top of a small table, Mr. Irvine got "almost immediately, 
with more than mortal speed, in writing," a communication 
signed " Tour grandmother, Tabitha M. Irvine." If he had 
ever known that she had an M in her name, he had surely for- 
gotten it ; but on reference, some days after, to an old family 
Bible he learnt that the M was correctly inserted. Bear in 



120 PHENOMENAL PROOFS. 

mind that all the while the writing was going on, Slade was 
sitting at some distance and did not even know the name of 
his sitter. 

While Mr. Irvine held an accordion, in broad daylight, in 
such a way that he could look closely on the keys, the side of 
the instrument opposite his hand began to be violently pulled 
out and pushed back with great rapidity, the keys rose and 
fell, and the tune of " Home, Sweet Home " was played. Mr. 
1. could not himself play the instrument, nor could he have 
even started the tune. Slade sat some distance opposite with 
his hands clasped behind his head as a spectator. Mr. I. then 
requested, mentally, that the tune should be changed to " Hail 
Columbia," and this was done without a word having been 
uttered. 

" From the most positive disbelief in a future state/' writes 
Mr. Irvine, " I was converted by the overwhelming tests I re- 
ceived on this occasion . 

" On the evening of the same day I visited Mr. Charles Fos- 
ter. At his request, while he was in another room transact- 
ing some business, I wrote down about twenty names of vari- 
ous persons dead and alive, but among the names four of dear 
friends deceased and much thought of, and folded the paper 
closely up. I had given Foster my name on entering the 
room. He placed his hand on the paper, and exclaimed, ' The 
spirit of Leonard Bartlette is standing there. He says he is 
an uncle of yours.' This was in truth one of the names I had 
written, though why I should have done so was singular, as I 
had not in many years thought of it. ' What was the cause of 
his death?' 'He says he fell from his wagon.' ' That was 
not so.' ' How then ?' ' ne was killed by a saw log rolling 
down on to him as he was walking along a bank.' Foster 
laughed. ■ What do you laugh at ?' ' Why, this spirit says he 
himself was on the ground and knows all about it, and you 
were nnt. Are you quite sure you are right?' ' Yes, as sure 
as a man can be of things he gets from the report of friends.' 
Some acquaintance of Foster's had entered during the seance ; 
and this man now exclaimed : ' Charley, you old humbug, you 
are caught this time, and I am glad of it.' Foster looked 
serious and said: 'I can't h< Ip it; mistakes are made, and 
lies are told, but ' And then brightening up, and speak- 
ing with renewed confidence, he said: 'See here; this spirit 
knows what he is about ; he is truthful ; you are wrong, and 
he is right.' He then described the man's appearance accu- 
rately, and asked me to learn if I were not in error. 

"On returning to Missouri, I stopped in Ohio, and asked 
my mother the cause of her brother Leonard's death. She re- 



MATERIALIZATIONS. 121 

plied : ' Why, he fell from his wagon of course V After full 
investigation it appeared that I had never heard a true ac- 
count of the accident. It took place some twenty years ago, 
when I was in Louisiana ; a friend wrote me there that my 
uncle had been killed by a saw log, and this statement I had 
never thought to question." 

Whence, under the circumstances, could Foster, ignorant as 
he was, have got his information if not from the spirit whose 
appearance he accurately described ? 

The Rev. Samuel Watson, of Tennessee, a well-known cler- 
gyman and author, says (1874) : "In full daylight, at three 
o'clock in the afternoon, I have seen the materialized spirit 
forms of my former wife, with whom I had lived twenty-six 
years ; and the father of my present wife, who had been a 
Methodist preacher f and I saw a number of other spirits, 
some of whom were also recognized as friends. I insist upon 
the reality of these facts, and upon their value as indicating 
the communion of the departed with those still on earth." 

I have just had an interview (Sept. 2d, 1874) with the Rev. 
R. S. Pope, of Hyannis, Mass., one. who in his very aspect and 
presence brings the credentials of a man of ample intelligence 
and perfect truthfulness He tells me that he was at Moravia 
with his wife, both of them strangers to all the persons there, 
and their very names unknown. They saw his mother and 
his two sons, all deceased. The last two came night after 
night every evening for a week. They spoke to him, they 
proved their identity to the complete satisfaction of himself 
and his wife. " I saw them," says Mr. Pope, " face to face as 
distinctly as I see you now. They were visible to all the spec- 
tators. There could be no delusion. It was a reality. My 
mother, who came first, proclaimed to the company my name 
(till then unknown to all) ; and my son Milton said, ' Preach 
this truth when you go home '—thus revealing my profession. 
My mother had on her head a cap of a luminous whiteness. 
Solid light will best express its appearance." Mr. Pope was 
a total disbeliever in Spiritualism when he went to Moravia. 
He came home thoroughly convinced of its fundamental truth, 
and he proclaimed his experiences publicly to his people. 
Previous to sitting for the phenomena he had satisfied himself 



122 SENTIMENT AND FACT. 

thoroughly, by examining the room and the cabinet, that no 
human contrivance could produce the manifestations. In the 
course of his. conversation with me, Mr. Pope said: <( As I 
could not believe these things on any man's testimony, so I do 
not ask you to believe them on mine." Three of his parishion- 
ers, he told me, had been to Moravia and satisfied themselves 
by similar objective phenomena of the survival of deceased 
friends and relatives. 

Facts like these, combining the proof palpable of immortal- 
ity with these inductive proofs derived from the exhibition of 
mental and physical powers wholly transcending all that is 
known to belong to mortal man, must be considered in con- 
nection with a vast collection of similar facts, attested by 
many thousands of sincere, intelligent persons in all parts of 
the world, not only at the present time especially, but in all 
past times. 

When so considered they lead irresistibly to the conviction 
that the dissolution of the earth-body leaves a man unimpair- 
ed in all those essential qualities and characteristics which 
constitute his identity and his individuality. 

If this view contradicts some of the exalted ideas we may 
have formed of the spiritual state, let us not therefore shrink 
from the facts. Mere sentiment will soon reconcile itself to 
the actual. 

" Suppose I do find the unseen to be the haunt of ungram- 
matical ghosts," says Mr. St. George Stock, " what then? It 
has its high life, I suppose, as well as its low. This world it- 
self is vulgar or practical according to the light in which we 
look at it. Do not reject well-attested narratives merely be- 
cause they sound grotesque. He is not a faithful lover of 
truth who would not go through dirt to meet her. ■ One vision 
of her snowy feet is worth the labor of a life.' " 

" True fortitude of understanding," says Paley, "consists 
in not suffering what we know to be disturbed by what we do 
not know. The uncertainty of one thing does not necessarily 
affect the certainty of another thing. Our ignorance of many 
points need not suspend our assurance of a few." 



EOBERT CHAMBERS'S THEORY. 123 

This advice cannot be too closely pondered by Spiritualists. 
The one great fact that they know must not be disturbed by 
the innumerable questions which even a child's skepticism 
can raise, and satisfactory answers to which cannot be readily 
given. Remember that this is a rudimental stage of being, and 
that we have all the future before us in which to think, study 
and work. We have reached the sublime summit from which 
we can surely see that man survives the corporeal dissolution. 
Let that immense and ever- fertile truth enter into our convic- 
tions, and possess them thoroughly, and help to shape our 
every act, thought and affection, and we may well be content 
to postpone all minor problems. 



CHAPTER X. 

The late Robert Chambers, the well-known Scottish pub- 
lisher and author, was a thoughtful investigator of the spirit- 
ual phenomena. During his last visit to America, I introduced 
him to the seances for physical manifestations, given by Miss 
Jenny Lord,* and he was thoroughly satisfied as to their re- 
markable and genuine character. 

In his introduction to the autobiography of Mr, D. D. 



* Now Mrs. J. "L. Webb, and resident in Cbicago. Sbe gives remark- 
able tests of spirit power and identity. I have mvself received some 
through her quite recently. Mr. S. S. Jones, of the Religio- Philosophical 
Journal, relates the fo lowing: 'vOn the evening of June 13th, 1874, we 
with others attended one of Mrs. Webb's seances. Through her medium- 
ship a spirit wi I materialize a hand, and write byut visibly. During the 
seance a spirit by our side wrote a communication on pap-^r, folded it np 
and placed it in our hand. Immediately, another spirit controlling Mrs. 
Webb's organs of speech, addressed us by name, saying, ' There is a spirit 
standing behind you; he looks as i p he was seventy or eighty years old when 
he died. Re was a large man and a mesmerizer. He it was who wrote 
and placed the communication in your hand just now. ' We held it until 
the gas was lighted, and then, to our jov, found it was from our old and 
esteemed friend, Dr. Underbill " (with whom Mr. Jones had had some 
slight differences of opinion, resulting in one or t.vo unkind letters and a 
coldness, abe-ut a year before the doctor's decease). " It read as follows; 
'Good evening, Mr. Jones. You will pard< n a few errors in the past. 
You remember. Success to you. Samuel Uxderhill/ The commu- 
nication was given under absolute tesn conditions, such as would admi t of 
no fraud or collusion on the part of any person present, and not only that, 
but no one present knew of any letters of unpleasantness having been re- 
ceived from Dr. U. by us. " 



124 FACTS FOR INDUCTION. 

Home, the well-known medium, Mr. Chambers has the fol« 
lowing pregnant and suggestive remarks : u The idea is now 
arising that the cause of the undiminished darkness overhang- 
ing all that relates to a state of existence after this life, may 
be, that the right track has never yet been entered on ; that the 
facts really affording in this direction materials for induction 
have hitherto been disregarded ; that they nevertheless abound ; 
and that a higher enlightenment will cause attention to be 
turned to them and reveal their profound significance." 

How true is all this ! In ancient times, before the positive 
and inductive sciences, which the nineteenth century has de- 
veloped, had opened new realms of thought and discovery, 
men hardly discriminated between the ordinary phenomena 
of Nature and those which indicate a direct spirit origin. 
Both classes of phenomena being equally mysterious to the 
ignorant, a misleading superstition, fatal to all scientific pro- 
gress, drew men away from the rational exploration and 
study of occurrences indicating spirit power and prevision. 
We must except such great thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Cice- 
ro and Plutarch ; but the general scientific culture was not 
sufficient to make their explanations level to the popular un- 
derstanding. 

In mediaeval times, when witchcraft was rampant, men 
were no better off. A narrow but imperious theology, and a 
state-craft, bound in priestly fetters, made it dangerous for a 
man to prosecute researches into the "ill-famed land of the 
marvelous." 

If even in our own day so enlightened a man as Professor 
Tyndall* is yet so besotted with prejudice as to attempt to warn 
off investigators by denouncing Spiritualism as " degrading" 
(as if the knowledge of any fact of God's universe were de- 
grading /), how can we wonder at the persecution which 
checked all rational inquiry into spiritual phenomena two 
centuries ago ! 



* " The overbearing minister of Nature," says the late Prof. DeMor. 

?;an. "who snaps you with unphilosophical 1 ' ' unscientific ! degradi- 
ng ! "as the clergyman once frightened you with Infidel, is ^till a recog- 
nized member of society, wants taming, and will get. it. He wears the 
priest -8 cast-off garb, dyed to escape detection. ' ■ 



SCIENCE AND MEDIUMSHIP. 125 

There truly has not been a time in the world's history till 
now when it was wholly safe for a man to investigate the 
facts, really affording, as Robert Chambers remarks, mate* 
rials for induction in relation to a state of existence after this 
life. 

Bear in mind, and learn humility from the fact, ye scien- 
tists of the year 1975, that, even in our day, the four leading 
professors of Harvard University tried to put a stop to all in- 
vestigation into these astounding and now established phe- 
nomena by denouncing " any connection with spiritualistic 
circles, so-called " as corrupting the morals and degrading the 
intellect; as tending "to lessen the truth of man and the 
purity of woman;" that Professor John Tyndall, as late as 
1874, spoke of Spiritualism, (a veritable science, by the testi- 
mony of such men as Wallace, Fichte, Flammarion, Yarley, 
and Hare,) as " degrading ;" and that Professor T. H. Hux- 
ley, as late as 1869, wrote a letter to the Dialectical Society, 
in which he says : " Supposing the phenomena to be genuine, 
they do not interest me." 

If learned professors, in the full blaze of the science of the 
iatter half of the nineteenth century can be so befogged by 
their petty prejudices and preconceptions, as to try to blot out 
the facts of Spiritualism, surely it will be easy for us to find 
charity in our hearts for the clerical and legal authorities who 
advocated the slaughter of witches, but little more than a cen- 
tury ago ! 

Before concluding the testimony of our day as to the materi- 
alization phenomena, I must not omit an account of the Eddy 
family. Some ten years ago I satisfied myself by personal 
investigation of the genuineness of their mediumship, and my 
convictions were not impaired by subsequent reports that two 
of them had turned against Spiritualism, and were professing 
to make antagonistic exposures. 

It appears that in some Western town, finding themselves 
utterly destitute of money and of the means of raising it, 
friendless and longing for home, they were tempted by some 
unscrupulous adviser to give exhibitions for the " exposure " 



L26 THE EDDY FAMILY. 

of the phenomena of Spiritualism. This they did, and they 
got audiences and funds from the foes of Spiritualism, which 
they could not get from the friends. But the poor mediums 
were as helpless as was the ancient heathen medium, Balaam, 
when called upon to curse : "How shall I curse whom God 
hath not cursed, or how shall I defy whom the Lord hath not 
defied ?" 

No one of the marvels wrought by spirits could be exposed 
or explained by any practical exhibition of trick or skill on the 
part of the two Eddys ; and those persons who had hoped to 
see Spiritualism finally shown up and exploded, went home in 
a sadder but wiser mood. 

We must exercise the largest charity for the moral weak- 
ness that led to such an attempt by the mediums. Only he 
who has experienced the suffering of extreme destitution is 
qualified to estimate their temptation. 

In a letter to the N. Y. Sun, dated Chittenden, Vermont, 
the village where the Eddy family reside, Sept. 2, 1874, Col. 
Henry S. Olcott, a well-known journalist of New York, gives 
an account which carries internal evidence of sincerity, com- 
petency, and careful observation of the phenomena. The 
diagram on the following page will give an idea of the room 
where most of the occurrences which he relates took place. 

The apartment is forty-eight by sixteen feet, with three 
windows on each side. At the west end is a raised platform 
the width of the room, about two feet high by four broad, 
reached by three steps of about ten inches rise. Between the 
kitchen chimney, which is in the middle, and the right hand 
wall is a small cupboard or closet, lathed and plastered, with 
a very narrow door, six feet and one inch high, opening from 
the platform, and a single window for purposes of ventila- 
tion. This closet is the cabinet in which the medium sits. A 
light hand-rail runs from side to side of the room at the edge 
of the platform. 

The Eddy family, originally twelve in number, are now 
reduced by marriage and death to five — three sons and two 
daughters. The great-grandmother on the female side was 



COL. OLCOTTS STATEMENT. 



127 






condemned to death in Salem in 1692, for witchcraft. She es- 
caped the gallows, however, by being rescued from the jail 
by her friends. 



I> 

c 



E 



HI 



IK 



K 

Kl | 



B 



I IK 



A— Entrance door; B B B— Windows; C— Platform; D— Chimney; 
E— Cabinet; F— Window; G— Chair where medium sits; H— Chair out- 
side cabinet; I— Table; J— St ps; K K— Chairs; L L— Two benches; 
M— Small stand on which a kerosene lamp stands. 

Chittenden, where the Eddys reside, is seven miles north 
from Kutland, and they live in a gloomy farm-house a cen- 
tury old, shaded by trees whose dense foilage makes the dark 
brown structure appear more sombre and inhospitable. 

" There is nothing about the Eddys or their surroun dings," 
says Col. Olcott, " to inspire confidence on first acquaintance. 
The brothers Horatio and William, who are the present medi- 
ums, are sensitive, distant, and curt to strangers, look more 
like hard-working, rough farmers than prophets or priests of 
a new dispensation, have dark complexions, black hair and 
eyes, stiff joints, a clumsy carriage, shrink from advances, and 
make new-comers feel ill at ease and unwelcome. The house 
is dark, rough, and uninviting, the appurtenances of the 



128 THE EDDY FAMILY. 

rudest, the astounding stories of what the Eddys do excite 
suspicion and invite distrust, and it would not be strange if a 
majority of persons attending only one seance should leave, 
as did a gentleman who came here with me, persuaded that it 
was a colossal humbug. 

" I thought about as much myself at first, and it was not until 
a second and third opportunity had been afforded me to enter 
the circle room, to inspect the cabinet before and after the 
performances, and I had informed myself from perfectly 
trustworthy sources as to their antecedents, that I became 
willing to put my name to this tale and say that, whatever 
the source of the marvels may be, it is certainly not the chi- 
canery or legerdermain of a pair of expert thaumaturgists. 
It suffices to leave each to form his own doctrine and join with 
Cicero, who in describing the different kinds of magic says : 
1 What we have to do with is the facts, since of the cause we 
know little. Neither are we to repudiate these phenomena, 
because we sometimes find them imperfect.' " 

Col. Olcott says : 

ci The Eddys can get no servants to live in the house, and 
so have to do all the housework— cooking, washing, and every- 
thing—themselves, and as they charge nothing for seances, 
and but $8 per week for board, there is small profit and much 
work in taking boarders. They are at feud with some of 
their neighbors, and as a rule not liked either in Rutland or 
Chittenden. I am now satisfied, after a very careful sifting 
of the matter, that this hostility and the ugly stories told about 
them are the result of their repellant manners and the ill 
name that their ghost-room has amoug a simple-minded, preju- 
diced people, and not to any moral turpitude on the part of 
the mediums. They are in fact under the ban of a public 
opinion that is not prepared or desirous to study the phe- 
nomena as either scientific marvels or revelations from an- 
other world. 

11 Many points noted in my memorandum book as throwing 
suspicion upon the Eddys Iobmit, because upon sifting them 
I found there was an easy explanation, and I cheerfully ad- 
mit that my impressions of the brothers, as to their honesty 
in the matter of the manifestations, as well as their personal 
worth, have steadily improved sinee the first day. I am satis- 
fied, moreover, that they have not the ability to produce them 
if they should try, whicli they do not, nor the wardrobe nor pro- 
perties requisite to clothe the multitude of forms (estimated at 
over 2,000) that during the twelvemonth last past have 
emerged from the cabinet and stalked the narrow platform. 



COL. OLCOTT'S STATEMENT. 129 

" After some singing and dancing, the persons present at 
the seance are invited to seat themselves on the benches, and 
William Eddy hangs a thick shawl over the door of the cabi- 
net, which he enters, and sits on the chair (Jr. The lamp is 
turned down until only a dim light remains ; the sitters in 
front join hands, and a violinist, placed at the extreme right 
of the row and nearest the platform, plays on his instrument. 
All is then anxious expectation. Presently the curtain stirs, 
is pushed aside, and a form steps out and faces the audience. 

"Seen in the obscurity, silent and motionless, appearing 5 n 
the character of a visitor from beyond the grave, it is calcu- 
lated to arouse the most intense feelings of awe and terror in 
the minds of the timid ; but happily the idea is so incompre- 
hensible, the supposition so unwarrantable, even absurd, that 
at first most people choose to curiously inspect the thing as a 
masquerading pleasantry on the part of the man they saw a 
moment before enter the cabinet. That the window of his 
closet is twenty feet from the ground ; that no ladder can be 
found about the premises ; that there is no nook nor corner of 
the house where a large wardrobe can be stored without de- 
tection ; that the medium totally differs in every material par- 
ticular from the majority of the phantoms evoked ; that the 
family are barely rich enough to provide themsel.ves with the 
necessaries of life, let alone a multitude of costly theatrical 
properties, avails nothing, although everybody can satisfy 
himself upon these points as I did. 

"The first impression is that there is some trickery ; for to 
think otherwise is to do violence to the world's traditions 
from the beginning until now ; besides which the feeling of 
terror is lessened by the apparition being seen by each person 
in company with numerous other mortals like himself, and 
the locked hands and touching shoulders on each side soon 
beget confidence. If the shape is recognized it bows and re- 
tires, sometimes after addressing words in an audible whis- 
per or a natural voice, as the case may be, to its friends, 
sometimes not. 

"After an interval of two or three minutes the curtain is 
again lifted, and another form, quite different in sex, gait, 
costume, complexion, length and arrangement of hair, height 
and breadth of body, and apparent age, comes forth, to be 
followed in turn by others and others, until after an hour or 
so the session is brought to a close, and the medium reappears 
with haggard eyes and apparently much exhausted. 

"In the three seances I have attended I have seen shapes 
of Indian men* and women and white persons, old and 
young, each in a different dress, to the number of thirty- two ; 
and I am told by respectable persons who have been here a 
long while that the number averages about twelve a night. 
The Eddys have sat continuously for nearly a year, and'are 



* ■' Quite a number of Indian spirits, " says Dr. Gr. E. Ditson, fc 'mate- 
terialize themselves every night at the Eddys 1 : for Mrs. Eddy was, it is 
said, a noble, generous-hearted woman, who cherished the most friendly 
intercourse with these red men when in the flesh, and one severe winter 
kept in her house a whole family of them that might otherwise ha-ve per- 
ished ■ ■ m 
9 



130 THE EDDY PHENOMENA. 

wearied in body and mind by the incessant drain upon their 
vital force, which is said to be inevitable in these phenomena. 
"For want of a better explanation I may as well state that 
they claim that the manifestations are produced by a band of 
spirits, organized with a special director, mistress of ceremo- 
nies, chemist, assistant chemist, and dark and light circle op- 
erators." 

Col. Olcott describes these spirits, and of one of them, an 

Indian girl, he says : 

"Honto is about five feet five inches high, a well-made, 
buxom girl, of dark copper complexion, and with long black 
hair. She is very agile and springy in gait, graceful in move- 
ment, and evidently a superior person of her class. At my 
second seance, she in my presence reached up to the bare 
white wall and pulled out a piece of gauzy fabric about four 
yards long, which parted from the plastering with a click, as 
if the end" had been glued to it. fche hung it over the railing 
to show us its texture, and then threw it into the cabinet. At 
either end of the platlorm she plucked, as if from the air 
itself, knitted shawls, which she opened and shook, and 
passed bt hind the curtain. Then descending the steps to the 
floor of the room, she pulled another from under Horatio Ed- 
dy's chair, where I had seen nothing but the bare floor a 
moment before. Then returning to the platform, she danced 
to the accompaniment of the violin, after which she reentered 
the cabinet and was gone. Let it be noticed that this creature 
had the shoulders, bust and hips of a woman, a woman's hair 
and feminine ways, and that she was at least four inches 
shorter than William Eddy, who measures five feet nine 
inches, and weighs one hundred and seventy-four pounds." 

Col. Olcott here quotes what was certified to by Mrs. Cleve- 
land, an old lady of the neighborhood ; but as there has been 
a misunderstanding about money between her and the Eddys, 
and she has since spoken equivocally in regard to her experi- 
ences, I have ruled out her testimony as of no importance 
either way, though her original declarations were probably 
true, as any one may learn on close inquiry. 

The testimony of Mr. E. V. Pritchard of Albany is of a 
very different weight. For months he pursued his investiga- 
tions at Chittenden. Kepeatedly, day after day, the mate- 
rialized figure of his deceased mother, an aged woman, would 
come out, put her arms about his neck, kiss him audibly, and 
lead him to a seat. Mr. Pritchard testifies that he could see 
every wrinkle of her face, the color of her eyes, and all the 
details of her dress, to the very ribbon in her old-fashioned 
cap. Once, as she receded toward the curtate, she began to 



THE EDDY PHENOMENA. 131 

sink to the floor just as "a piece of butter would melt clown 
on a hot plate," and her figure dwarfed till it was not above 
eighteen inches in height. Mr. P. had seen the same thing 
happen once to Honto. 

Since his long-continued experiences Mr. Pritchard has had 
no cause to have any misgiving as to the genuineness of the 
phenomena. To satisfy myself of this, I requested Dr, G. L. 
Ditson of Albany to call on him and learn what he could. 
Under date of Jan. 18th, 1876, Dr. Ditson writes me : 

"Neither Mr. Pritchard nor his sister, Mrs. Packard, has 
had any misgivings in respect to the genuineness of the Wil- 
liam Eddy manifestations. Lately Mr. Pritchard has been to 
* Cascade,' Mrs. Andrews's home, and has had his faith con- 
firmed—his faith in the actuality of the materialization of his 
spirit-friends ; ior his mother appeared there exactly as she had 
at Chittenden, wearing the same cap and ribbon, and the same 
dress in which she had so often showed herself at the Eddys'. 
Mr. P. staid about a month at Mrs. Andrews's. In the 
circle he was only about five or six feet from his mother's 
apparition, and, as the light was good (much better than at 
Chittenden), he could see her quite distinctly. She bowed to 
him also, and when he was quite satisfied that it was his 
mother, he said, ' Is that you, mother ?' She replied in a loud 
whisper, 'Yes, my son.' Neither Mr. P. nor Mrs. Packard, 
who lived in the Eddy house for mouths, lay any stress on 
the reports from Mrs. Cleveland. They saw nothing that 
looked like fraud, and their opportunities were unequalled." 

Col. Oicott resumes his narrative : 

"Of the thirty-two spirit forms I have seen, more than 
three-fourths were recognized by persons present as near rela- 
tives. The first evening, my eyes not being accustomed to 
the light, nor my powers of observation trained to watch de- 
tails, the spectral shapes came and went in a confusing man- 
ner ; but the second and third seances found me prepared to 
scrutinize the phenomena with deliberation. 

" The reader will please remember that owing to my inhos- 
pitable reception, the suspicions excited by the place" and its 
surroundings, and the astounding claims put forth by the 
spiritual press as to the Eddy manifestations, I was on the 
alert to detect fraud and expose it. As each phantom came 
into view I observed its height against the door jamb, its 
probable weight, its movements, apparent age, style of wear- 
ing the hair, and beard if a man, the nature and elaborate- 
ness of its costume, and the external marks of sex, as regards 
form— all the while having in mind the square, Dutch build 
and heavy movements of William Eddy. 1 saw men, women 
and children come one after another before me, and in no one 
instance detected the slightest evidence of trickery. 

"Among the remarkable tests of identity coming under my 
notice was the appearance of a young soldier of about twenty 
years of age, the son of Judge Bacon of St. Johnsbury, Vt. f 



132 THE EDDY FAMILY. 

whose death occurred under painful circumstances in the 
army, and whose name or existence even had not been men- 
tioned by his father to any person about the place. The 
spirit was clothed in a dressing-gown, light trousers, and a 
white shirt with turn-down collar. lie was instantly recog- 
nized. The night that Mr. Pritchard was sitting on the chair 
H, two of his nephews, dressed differently, wearing their 
beards in different ways, differing in height and appearance 
in a marked degree, stepped forth and shook hands with him. 
I sat within five yards of them, and saw them with entire dis- 
tinctness. 

11 The gentleman of whom mention has been previously 
made, Mr. E. V. Pritchard,* of Albany, is a retired merchant, 
whose credibility must be well known in that city at least. 
He came to the Eddys' in May, expecting to remain only a 
few days, but his experiences have been so satisfactory that 
he is still here. He first saw the spirit of his brother's son, 
who was killed in the army, and afterward his mother, his 
sister's husband, two of her sons and one son-in law, and his 
brother's son. He has seen four or five female spirits carry- 
ing children in their arms, and, setting them on the floor, 
lead them about by the hand. He has seen the children in 
some cases clasp their arms about their mothers' necks. Once 
an Indian woman brought in her papoose, swaddled in the 
Indian fashion, and he heard it cry. An Indian girl brought 
in a robin perched on her finger, which hopped and chirped 
as naturally as life. 

" Mr. P. saw a mother spirit walk to the front of the plat- 
form and hold her babe over the railing toward the audience, 
so that they could see it kick its little legs, move its arms and 
hear it crow. Again, on another evening, three little girls, 
apparently four, six and eight years' of age respectively, stood 
side by side in the door of the cabinet, and the eldest'calling 
to her^mother in the audience, spoke her own name, ' Min- 
nie.' No William Eddy in this instance, surely. Mr. Pritch- 
ard has heard the spectres speak in all voices, from the faint- 
est whisper to a full, natural voice. As regards costumes, he 
has seen the forms clothed in what appeared to be silk, cot- 
ton, merino, and tarletan, soldiers in uniform, one navy cap- 
tain in full uniform, and wearing his side arms, women in 
plain robes and richly embroidered, Indian warriors in a 
great variety of costumes, some barefoot and others shod in 
moccasins. Once a pipe was lighted and handed to Honto, 
who walked about smoking it, and at each whiff her bronze 
face was illuminated so that every lineament was shown. 
She came and smoked in his very face to give him a perfect 
view of her own. 

" Out of the mass of testimony I have noted in my memo- 
randum I will only quote in addition what Mr. Bacon says, as 
this, added to what has preceded, should suffice to at least 



*Dr. G-. L. Ditson. of Albany, the well-known writer and Spiritualist, 
says of Mr. Pritchard. in whose company he witnessed the phenomena at 
the Eddys' : lk His veracity and good judgment no one will question whc 
knows him. "— E. S. 



WORDS FROM A SEER. 133 

clear William Eddy from the suspicion of producing: the phan- 
tom shapes by changes of voice and dress. John Bacon 2d of 
St. Johnsbury, Vt., is an associate Justice of the county court 
of Caledonia county. He came here August 22d, 1874, to see 
the phenomena. Thefiist evening he saw the spirit of his 
father, who died forty-eight years ago. Recognized him by 
his shape. The form was dressed in dark clothes, with a 
standing shirt cellar and wUixe shirt. He was bare-headed. 
Standing erect he towered to the height of six feet one inch, 
and called his son by his Christian name, speaking in his fa- 
miliar tones. His breathing was distinctly perceived in the 
act of speaking. Besides him the Judge has seen one sister, 
fifty-three years of age at the time of her decease, and anoth- 
er of only three years ; his wife's father and mother (the lat- 
ter wore a light dress and a white cap ; she is a very short 
woman, not above five feet in height); and finally his own 
son, whose death has elsewhere been alluded to. By actual 
count kei.t he has seen sixty-six different spirits to date (Sept. 
2d, 1874)." 

According to Col. Olcott he had an interview with Andrew 
Jackson Davis before going to Chittenden, and in reply to 
Col. Olcott's question how he could account for the imparta- 
tion of life to these temporary organisms, so that the heart 
can be felt to beat and the other physical operations be car- 
ried on, Mr. Davis said he had no explanation to offer, and 
left the riddle for the disciples of Comte and Tyndall to solve. 
He said that Yarley, the English electrician, wrote to him re- 
cently to ask where was the connecting link between matter 
and spirit. He replied that it was just upon the plane of 
these materializations, where spirit descended toward matter, 
and matter ascended toward spirit, the point of contact would 
be found. There are : 1, solids ; 2, fluids ; 3, atmospheres ; 4, 
ethers ; 5, essences (the imponderable distilled out of the 
whole universe of matter). Matter is at its climax of progress 
there. Then takes place the alliance of spirit, and at this 
sensitive place occur all these apparitions. The spirit lifts 
matter up to this point, and by reducing its temperature and 
motion he evolves the apparition. The reversal of this action 
produces the vanishment of the shape. All forms and poten- 
cies exist in the atmosphere, and by the action of spirit upon 
them all these and any other desired results are attained. 

Mr. Davis is disposed to regard all these materialization phe- 
nomena as " feats of jugglery by expert spirits, numbers of 



134 SEERS AND SPIRITS. 

whom are deeply versed in chemistry and the other natural 
sciences/ ' The phenomena, he thinks, are " necessary to 
convince nine-tenths of the world's people, that death does not 
kill a man" He considers Katie King and the Eddy ghosts 
as of no importance as individual identifications ; they are 
simply important as establishing the general doctrine of im- 
mortality. 

But Mr. Davis does not regard himself or any other seer as 
infallible. His opinions must be taken with the qualifications 
he himself suggests. There are many intelligent witnesses 
who wholly dissent from the notion that there are no " indi- 
vidual identifications " in these materialization phenomena. 
They see no reason why the proofs of identification are not as 
strong in the case of materialized spirits as in the case of those 
spirits who manifest themselves only to the clairvoyant vision. 
The question of identification is equally difficult in all its 
phases. 

" Yain is it," says Dr. John P. Gray, "to rely on the integ- 
rity and childlike honesty of the seer's outer-life character 
as a protection against illusion on this topic of identification ; 
the world's history is full to overflowing of the recorded con- 
tradictions of seers." 

There is still a long distance, it would seem, between the 
highest spirits and the Infinite Intelligence ; and it is time 
that we were made to realize this important truth. In ex- 
posing the error of the common notion as to the infallibility 
of men when they have passed out of their earthly surround- 
ings, Spiritualism is doing a service next to that of proving 
immortality. The hiatus caused by passing from the mortal 
to the spiritual state is not so serious as is generally supposed. 

"You complain," says Shorter, "that the spiritual com- 
munications you receive are not to be implicitly trusted. 
Well, perhaps that is the very lesson they are chiefly designed 
to teach you. " No one has done more than Mr. Davis to guard 
us from too hasty a confidence ; and his cautions as to the ma- 
terialization phenomena should be carefully heeded. 



THE SPIKIT-BODY 135 



CHAPTER XL 

In this chapter I propose to consider the spirit-body ; the 
testimony which seers and others offer on the subject, and 
which the phenomena of Spiritualism seem to confirm. 

But some preliminary observations in regard to the weight 
to be attached to the revelations of seers are here in place. 

Experience in Spiritualism soon teaches us to regard no 
spirit, seer, or revelator as infallible. There have been great 
mediums who have believed themselves the direct vehicles of 
the highest divine inspiration ; but it would seem to be a di- 
vine law that human reason must be left free. The seer who 
plays the theosophist, and claims infallibility, is often blind- 
est when he thinks himself most illumined. Humility is 
ever the best ground for our high researches. To get a sight 
of the stars by daylight we must go to the bottom of a well. 

Swedenborg (1689-1772) was a great medium and seer ; but 
I cannot believe he wholly escaped the influence of some of 
the deluding spirits, against whom he warns us. When he 
describes Quakers and Moravians as lingering in infernal 
wretchedness in the other world, merely on account of certain 
speculative beliefs held in this, I can see only inconsistency 
with those teachings which he gives us in his humbler yet 
higher moods. 

But Swedenborg's testimony, when it accords with reason 
and with facts, must not be regarded as weakened, because 
he sometimes seems to err and give way to fantasies the most 
revolting. Though not infallible, he is oftentimes a divine 
teacher. It is when he claims infallibility, and threatens 
those who discredit him with some nameless spiritual injury, 
insanity, or loss, that we must question his illumination. 

The imperfection of all individual revelations, through 
Messiahs and seers, is well explained by the Rev. James E. 



136 NO PERFECT REVELATION. 

Smith* (1854), who says: "Though the works of God are 
perfect, in universals, they are not so in particulars. This 
glorious truth contains the very seed of wisdom. The super- 
ficial opinion is, that every individual, or particular divine 
production, must be perfect, in the common sense of the 
word ; and what is not perfect, men ascribe equivocally to 
Nature, or any other cause but God— a habit of mind which, 
logically developed, leads a man to its natural ultimate, prac- 
tical and theoretical atheism ; for, seeing nothing around him 
that is absolutely perfect, or free from defect, he seeks for 
the cause in an imperfect agent, and goes no further when he 
has found it. 

"Were God's particular works all and alike perfect, there 
would be neither learning nor progress, no improvement, no 
amendment, no desire to improve or amend, and therefore no 
industry, no activity, no motive whatever even for action. 
God's works are a graduated scale of better and worse. Per- 
fection belongs to the whole collectively ; never to any of the 
parts. 

" No individual revelation whatever can be 'perfect, any more 
than any other individual or particular work of God. There 
never was an age without prophets. They exist now, as real 
and genuine, though not as eminent and authoritative as ever. 
Prophets abounded in Israel. Prophecy then ceased, or rath- 
er they ceased to compile prophecies. Not understanding the 
nature of the mystic phenomena, they established a creed y 
which prevails to this day, that revelation has ceased, and that 
modern pretenders to inspiration are either madmen or im- 
postors—the only intelligible mode of avoidiDg the difficulties 
which presented themselves to their minds— a mode still re- 
sorted to by Jews, Christians, Philosophers, Deists and Athe- 
ists, to account for all spiritual visitations, such as the mis- 
sion of Mahomet or Swedenborg, which they cannot under- 
stand for the reason above given their belief being that even 

* Born in Glasgow, 1801, died in 1857. He was a Spiritualist long be- 
fore 1S4S; and subsequently satisfied himself of the genuineness of the 
phenomena, through Mrs. Hayden, the excellent American medium. He 
wrote "The Divine Drama of Civilization, '" and edited »he Family Her- 
ald, i 



THE SPIEIT-BODY. 137 

a particular and local revelation from God can never be char- 
acterized by any imperfection or any contradiction." 

"Some persons ask," says Kardec, "Of what use are the 
teachings of the spirits if they offer to us no greater certain- 
ty than human teachings? The answer is easy: As we do 
not accept the teachings of all men with equal confidence, nei- 
ther must we the teachings of all spirits. God has given us rea- 
son and discrimination to judge of spirits as well as of men. 
Surely the fact of our meeting in the world with bad men is 
not a reason for withdrawing ourselves from society. There 
are spirits of all degrees of goodness and of malice, of knowl- 
edge and of ignorance, all subject to the law of progress." 

We must judge of their communications precisely as we 
would of those that come through channels mortal and terres- 
trial. We must learn to separate the wheat from the chaff, 
the spirit from the letter, the essentially divine from the en- 
veloping finite. To ask why men were not created perfect, 
is equivalent to asking why they were created at all. 

Among the truths to which Sweclenborg, in company with 
all great seers, bears witness, is that of the spirit body. He 
tells us that thought implies a thinking substance, as much as 
sight or hearing implies a seeing and hearing substance ; that 
it is as absurd to contemplate thought as something independ- 
ent of the substance of the soul or spirit, as it is to contem- 
plate sight or hearing independent of the substance of the eye 
or ear. 

It .is remarkable with what unanimity mediums everywhere 
and at all times have insisted on describing spirits as in the 
human form, and in representing man, in all the stages of his 
existence, as an organized being. This doctrine of a spirit 
body seems to be inseparable from all forms of Spiritualism. 
The oldest Magi, the wise men of Persia, believed in it. 
Hesiod and Homer teach it. Surely the attributes of mind 
will not be lessened in dignity by being indissolubly connect- 
ed with an organism. 

A spirit body, composed of elements imponderable and in- 
visible in reference to our physical senses, is, as we have seen, 



138 THE SPIRIT-BODY. 

in the second chapter of this work, a legitimate scientific con- 
ception, involving no chemical difficulty. Even all the con- 
stituents of our present earth-body may be held in solution, 
in a state invisible and impalpable, in the atmosphere ; and 
how far matter may gain new properties or part with old ones 
by differentiations and transformations, ruled by spirit power, 
we are yet to learn. 

"Let us distrust, " says Chaseray, "our imperfect senses, 
since there are so many substances which we can neither feel 
nor see. Let us not be precipitate in denying the duality of 
the human being because the scalpel of the anatomist cannot 
reveal to our sight a principle eminently subtle. Man is not 
driven to annihilation even under the hypothesis of material- 
ity." Chaseray thinks that the spirit body may some day be 
proved by science. 

Even Cabanis (1757-1807), the great physiologist of France, 
who sees nothing but organism, who regards the brain as "an 
organ specially designed for the production of thought as the 
stomach and intestines are for digestion, and the liver for the 
filtration of the bile," and from whom Carl Yogt has borrowed 
some of his own rash expressions in opposition to the immor- 
tality of the soul— even Cabanis concludes by admitting that 
"a principle or vivifying faculty" is needed to account for 
the phenomena. He elsewhere tells us that for those who 
would establish the persistence of this principle or "cause," 
after the destruction of the living body, it may suffice to know 
that "the contrary opinion cannot be demonstrated by any 
positive arguments." 

Spiritualism proves that the "contrary opinion" is wholly 
untenable ; that there is a somewhat, not explicable by the 
known qualities of matter, which is the antecedent of the 
organization ; that there can be no such thing as a gradual 
transition from known matter to thought, seeing that life is 
in every case prior to organization. 

The notion of certain Spiritualists that the spirit body is 
evolved out of the physical is therefore a reversal of the order 
of things. " To make A the offspring of B, when the very 



THE SOUL. 139 

existence of B as B presupposes the existence of A, is prepos- 
terous in the literal sense of the word, and a consummate in- 
stance of thft hysteron proteron in logic."* 

It is due to the memory of Cabanis to add, that in a posthu 
mous letter, published by Dr. Berard, he abandons his mate- 
rialistic opinions and recognizes formally the necessity of a 
spiritual or immaterial! principle. 

Dr. Georget. another celebrated French materialist, author 
of the " Physiology of the Nervous System " (1821), was led 
by the phenomena of clairvoyance and somnambulism, to re- 
verse his whole philosophy and to proclaim, in his will, that 
he had arrived at a " profound conviction, founded upon in- 
contestable facts," that there exists " an intelligent principle, 
altogether different from material existences ; in a word, the 
soul and God." 

The examples of Professor Hare, Dr. Elliotson, and many 
others, converted by the phenomena of Spiritualism from a 
life-long adherence to materialism, are further illustrations 
of the power of facts. 

To name the great men, ancient and modern, who have en- 
tertained a belief in a corporeal principle surviving the physi- 
cal body, would be an interesting bat an endless task. Plato, 
in strict conformity with Modern Spiritualism, declares that 
" the apparitions of the dead are not mere groundless imagina- 
tions, but proceed from souls themselves, surviving in luci- 
form bodies." 

We have already seen that the Christian Fathers were di- 
vided in opinion in respect to the soul ; some, who were Pla- 
tonists, maintaining that it is an immaterial principle, devoid 
of all concretion, but invariably associated with a thin, flexi- 
ble, and sensitive body, visible to the eye ; while others, 
among whom Tertullian may be regarded as the chief, main« 

* Coleridge's Biographia Literaria. 

+ One of Henry More's antagonists (1659) tells him that the word imma- 
terial signifies nothing but a negation. More replies: kk A negative par- 
ticle, in composition with a word that denotes imperfection, implies posi- 
tiveness and perfection, as in infinite, immortal, and the like; these 
remove the imperfections in finiteness and mortality, and imply some- 
thing positive of a better nature. And so does immaterial remove the 
imperfections of discerpibility and impenetrability, and implies the con* 
trary. ' 



140 THE SPIRIT-BODY. 

tained that the soul is simply a second body. This they did 
to serve their theological notions in regard to the future pun- 
ishment of the unregenerate. The abler writers, including 
Clement and Origen, taught the Platonic doctrine. Both par- 
ties, however, concurred in the fact of the spirit body. 

"Even here in this life/' says Cudworth, "our body is, as 
it were, twofold, interior and exterior ; we having, besides 
the grossly tangible bulk of our outward body, another inte- 
rior spiritual body, which latter is not put into the grave with 
the other." 

"The primitive belief,' , says Herbert Spencer, "is that 
every dead man becomes a demon (spirit), who remains some- 
where at hand, may at any moment return, may give aid or 
do mischief, and is continually propitiated. Hence among 
other agents whose approbation or reprobation is contem- 
plated by the savage as a consequence of hfe own conduct, 
are the spirits of his ancestors." / ^ 

This was meant as a reproach to Modern^^pjjjftualism ! I 
accept it as a confirmation that its fundamental fact is well 
known to men in a savage as well as to those in a civilized 
state. 

In #is "Physical Theory of Another Life," Isaac Taylor 
says: "What the Christian Scriptures specifically affirm is 
the simple physiological fact of two species of corporeity for 
man : the first that of our present animal and dissoluble or- 
ganization ; the second, a future spiritual structure, imper- 
ishable, and adorned with higher powers and many desirable 
prerogatives." 

Thus the pneumatology of the New Testament as well as of 
the Old teaches the fact of a future spirit-body, and I may 
acid that in many passages it assumes that the spirit-body is a 
present fact ; as when the damsel Ehoda (Acts, xii.) told how 
Ptter stood before the gate, and her hearers would not be- 
lieve it, but replied, "It is his angel"; and as when Paul 
says, " There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body " 
•—is now, not shall be. 

The heathenish doctrine of the resurrection of the natural 



THE SPIRIT-BODY. 141 

body, so long an excrescence on rational Christianity, is now 
rarely preached except in a qualified sense that makes it less 
repulsive to scientific thought. 

''The soul," says Lavater, "on leaving its earthly frame is 
immediately clothed in a spiritual frame withdrawn from the 
material. The soul itself, during its earth-life, perfects the 
faculties of the spiritual body, by means of which it will ap- 
prehend, feel, and act in its new existence." 

It is not improbable that matter, as its elements become 
more subtile, is more suited for high organic forms. The 
body which is unfolded by natural processes from an egg 
contains in itself, even before the shell is broken, chemi- 
cal substances which no test can discover in the egg or in the 
air. May there not be in man's constitution an anterior germ 
of spiritual vitality, from which, cotemporaneous with the 
growth of the physical, a spirit-body is developed ? 

"By the facts of somnambulism," says A. J. Davis, "the 
double nature of man is proved to a demonstration. From 
the universal exhibitions of a system of duality or twofold 
organization, it is but common sense to infer that the outer 
organs of vision, like all the other senses, are but the external 
form of interior correspondential principles, as words are the 
forms of thought." 

The true and genuine body must be that which retains and 
preserves its organical identity amid the changes and the flux 
of matter, which the physical frame is constantly undergoing. 
The power which connects the gases, earths, metals, and 
salt into one whole, which penetrating them keeps them to- 
gether, or dismisses some and attracts others, must be that 
divine and forming principle, the soul, binding the seeming 
duality of physical body and spiritual body in the strictest 
unity, so far as the exterior which changes, decays, and pass- 
es, can be bound to the interior which abides as the continent 
of man's individuality for the next stage of being. 

But why not a duality of beast and plant, as well as of 
man ? What of the lower animals ? Do theyh&ve this inner, 
invisible body, the abiding principle of their external frames? 



142 THE SPIRIT-BODY. 

Yes, the psychical principle is that which controls all organic 
forms. But as to what becomes of the psychical individuali- 
zation when organisms lower than the human are dissolved, 
we have only speculation and analogy for our guide. Seers 
and spirits are at variance on this inscrutable question. Ac- 
cording to some the psychical element is permanently indi- 
vidualized only in man. As unripe seeds do not germinate, 
so the inferior forms of intelligence render up the psychical 
element at death to return to that source from which it was 
separated in organization. 

But the higher Spiritualism teaches, that the psychical ele- 
ment of all animals, if not of all plants, is imperishable in its 
individualization. It is not necessary to suppose that the 
lower animals will have, in their remote future states, the 
same forms they had here. They may rise to higher forms of 
being, and, in some mysterious way, there may be a progress 
for them having some analogy with our own. 

There is surely room enough for all, since the capacities of 
God's universe are limited only by his own infinity. Even 
for the innumerable germs that seem to perish, and of whose 
apparent waste atheistic Skepticism* has so much to say, 
there may be a provision by which all that is essential in them 
is not wasted, but returned with improved power to ^Nature's 
measureless receptacles. 

Sir J. E. Smith (1759-1828), the distinguished botanist, was 
of opinion that in the vital principle we have a glimpse of 
the immediate agency of the Deity. He says : "I can no 
more explain the physiology of vegetables, than of animals, 
without the hypothesis of a living principle in both." What 
can this principle be but that one deific force, to which uni- 
versal science is conducting us ? 

Charles Bonnet (1720-1793), the great Swiss naturalist, 
says : " The common opinion which would consign to an eter- 
nal death all organized beings, man alone excepted, would 

* ' ; See, ' ' says Strauss, ' ' the small app'es and pears fallen ere they were 
yet ripe; know that if the spawn of fi°>h invariably attained full growth, 
all the rivers and seas would not suffice for them I 1 ' But does it follow 
thnt because Strauss does not see how such apparent waste is compensated, 
that there therefore is no compensation in the laboratories of Nature ? 



THE SPIRIT-BODY. 143 

impoverish the universe. It would precipitate forever into 
the abyss of nothingness an innumerable multitude of sen- 
tient creatures, capable of a considerable increase of happi- 
ness, and which in repeopling and embellishing new earths, 
would exalt the adorable beneficence of the Creator." 

This, I am disposed to think, is the general sentiment of 
Spiritualists, as it was of Leibnitz, Bishop Butler and Agas- 
siz, on the subject of a future for the lower animals. 

Bonnet believed further, that man's future body exists al- 
ready with the body visible ; and he believed that science would 
some day have instruments which would enable it to detect 
this body, formed as it probably is of the elements of ether or 
of light. Is not his prediction partially verified in the power 
of the photographer's apparatus to catch the impression of 
spiritual forms which our normal vision cannot detect ? 

This spirit-body, according to Bonnet, will not require 
those daily reparations which the animal body exacts, but 
will subsist undoubtedly by the simple energy of its princi- 
ples and its mechanism. It will be superior to those laws of 
gravitation which limit grosser bodies. It will obey with ease 
and astonishing promptitude the slightest behests of the soul, 
and will transport us from world to world with a facility and 
a speed equal to that of light. By its superior powers we 
shall exercise without fatigue all our faculties, because the 
new organs through which the soul will unfold its motive 
force will be better proportioned to the energy of that force, 
and will not be subject to the influence of those disturbing 
causes which continually conspire to check and impede our 
activity in our present physical bodies. Our attention will 
seize at once and with equal clearness a very great number of 
objects, more or less complicate ; it will penetrate them inti- 
mately, separate partial impressions from a general knowl- 
edge, and discover without effort resemblances the most deli- 
cate. Our genius will then be proportioned to our attention, 
for attention is the mother of genius. 

But the development of these enlarged powers will proba- 
bly be very gradual ; it will be in proportion to our own ef- 



144 THE SPIEIT-BODY. 

forts, our own aspirations and attainments. If we have led ft 
sluggish, sensual life on earth, we must not hope that the 
spirit-body will at once make up for our delinquencies or 
convert a sinner into a saint, a blockhead into a Kepler or a 
Newton. 

The student of spiritual phenomena is continually aston- 
ished by the vast amount of testimony, past and contempora- 
neous, in confirmation of them. The testimony of the past 
has a new interest and significance now that it is confirmed 
by marvels of daily occurrence. 

In his remarkable account of "Spirit-rapping, healing, mu- 
sic, drawing, and other manifestations in Sunderland, Eng- 
land, in 1840, through Mary Jobson,"* my friend W. M. Wil- 
kinson observes : " Enough there is to prove that all natural 
objects exist only by reason of a spiritual creative force, 
which projects and sustains them in the realm of matter, 
wnich we call the world, and that to have a manifestation of 
this spiritual force, it is only necessary that some conjoint 
conditions of mind and body should be so arranged as to be 
favorable to that end. The person in whom this occurs is 
called a medium. " 

Melancthon f says : " I have myself seen spirits, and I know 
many trustworthy persons who affirm that they have not only 
seen them, but carried on conversations with them." Luther 
bears testimony equally strong to the existence of the depart- 
ed in spiritual forms ; so do Calvin, Knox, Wesley, Oberlin. 
St. Augustine mentions saints by whom he was visited, and 
states that he himself had appeared to two persons who had 
known him only by reputation. At another time he appeared 
to a famous teacher of eloquence in Carthage, and explained 
to him several most difficult passages in Cicero's writings. 



* See the London Spiritual Magazine, September, 1874. 

t "De Anima Recogn., 1 '' Wittenberg, 1595. p. 317. Melancthon relates 
that Luther was visited by a spirit who announced his coining by "■ a rap- 
ping at the door." 1 Richard Baxter (Saints 1 Everlasting Rest, Chap 7) 
says: "Yea, goodly, sober Melancthon affirms that he had seen i uch 
sights or apparitions himself. 11 Baxter adtls: "1 have received un- 
doubted testimony of the truth of such apparitions. 11 For Wesley's 
experiences, see tk Planchette, T1 p. 31; for Oberiiirs, ib., p 2o9. Oberlin, 
innis Memoirs, declares that for nine years he had constant interviews 
with his deceased wife. Luther's works passim show the entirenessof 
his belief in apparitions. 



THE SPIRIT-BODY. 145 

Thus Augustine's testimony is in support of the theory that 
the spirit-body can be separated from the physical, even dur- 
ing the earthly lifetime of the individual. 

Accounts, like the following, of the action of spirits in in- 
terposing to influence mortals at critical times, are very nu- 
merous. A famous German jurist, Counsellor Hellfeld in 
Jena, an hour before midnight was on the point of signing 
the death-warrant of a cavalry officer. His clerk was present. 
All at once they both heard heavy blows fall on the window 
as if the panes were struck with a cavalry whip. The judge 
delayed his action in consequence, and substituted a minor 
punishment; and before the year closed a criminal was 
caught who volunteered the confession that he was the per- 
petrator of the crime for which the innocent cavalry officer 
had been punished, and had been near to being executed. 

It is not true that the intelligence exhibited by the supposed 
spirit is always measured by that of the medium. The in- 
stances to the contrary are innumerable. Witness the case of 
Mrs. Fox-Jencken's infant boy, less than six months old. 
Among the Camisard prophets (1686-1707) were many in- 
fant trance-mediums, who spoke in language altogether above 
their capacities. We hear of a boy fifteen months old who 
spoke in good French, u as though God were speaking through 
his mouth.' ' Jacques Dubois says he has seen more than 
sixty children between three and twelve years of age, who 
exhibited similar powers. "I knew at Tyes," says Pierre 
Charman, "a man whose little boy, only five years old, 
prophesied, predicted disturbance in the church, exhorted to 
repentance, and always spoke in good French." The annals 
of witchcraft are crowded with similar phenomena, perfectly 
well authenticated. 

Mr. E. B. Tylor, in his "Primitive Culture," shows how 
ancient are the phenomena of the instantaneous untying of 
complicate knots by spirit skill. This preternatural unbind- 
ing is vouched for by no less a personage than the crafty 
Ulysses himself on board the ship of the Thesprotians : 
10 



146 THE SPIRIT-BODY. 

"Me on the well-benched vessel, strongly bound, 
They leave, and snatch their meal upon the beach. 
But to my help the gods themselves unwound 
My cords with ease, though firmly twisted round. " 

In his " Theory of a Nervous Ether" (1873), Dr. B. W 
Richardson suggests that there exists, in addition to a nervous 
fluid, a gas or vapor, pervading the whole nervous organism, 
surrounding as an enveloping atmosphere each molecule of 
nervous structure, and forming the medium of the influences 
transmitted from a nerve-centre to the periphery, and from 
the periphery to a nerve-centre. 

Here we are brought by the latest inductive science close 
upon the confines of the spirit-body. Every investigator 
whose prejudices do not incapacitate him from looking into 
the facts, begins to see that some higher series of causes, 
hitherto denied by modern science, must be conceded in order 
to account for those phenomena of Spiritualism, inexplicable 
on any known principles. 

"I have come to the conclusion," says J. H. Von Fichte 
(Stuttgardt, 1871), "that it is absolutely impossible to account 
for these (the spiritual) phenomena, save by assuming the ac- 
tion of a superhuman influence." 

"The spirit- body," says a spirit communicating through 
M. A. (Oxon.), "is the real individual ; and though for a 
time it is clothed with fluctuating atoms, its identity is abso- 
lutely the same when those atoms are dispensed with It is 
preserved after the death of the earth-body in precisely simi- 
lar sort as it exists now, veiled in grosser matter." But these 
changing atoms, which the spirit-body attracts to itself, are 
according to this authority, no real part of the personality. 

Spiritualism makes us realize that we are under the scrutiny 
of any spirit who, from curiosity or affection, may desire to 
know our deeds and our thoughts. In this tremendous fact, 
is there no incentive to right thinking and right doing ? 

"There is a wonderful world of spirit," says Leif child, 
"and there are hierarchies of ministering spirits. Surely 
they form a great cloud of witnesses, who, though they sit 



KARDEC ON THE SPIRIT-BODY. 147 

aloof, intently watch our earthly course, and encourage us by 
their unseen but not always unf elt presence. With the speed 
of thought they interfuse their holiness into our thoughts. 
They shine into our earthly homes like morning beams, and 
they beautify our departure in death with the heavenly splen- 
dor of an evening Alp-glow. 

" Blessed and blessing hierarchies! Not one of your in- 
numerable cohorts can be subject to annihilation. You mul- 
tiply by human death, you increase by spiritual selection, 
you obtain liberty through the grave, you gain light by look- 
ing on the countenance of the Divine. Not one single act of 
your beneficent ministry to man is altogether lost ; every one 
is a celestial force. You have been often misapprehended 
and not seldom vulgarized. Distorted Science has denied 
you, scornful Naturalism has derided you, foolish Supersti- 
tion has degraded you. Nevertheless you live, and you live 
for us. Were our eyes duly purged, we should behold you 
daily ; were our ears rightly attuned we should listen to you 
hourly." 

In Kardec's system the spirit-body is a fluidic vaporous en- 
velope which he calls the perisprit. This, he says, he has 
neither invented nor supposed in order to explain phenomena; 
its existence has been revealed to him by spirits, and obser- 
vation has confirmed it. It is supported, moreover , by a study 
of the sensations among spirits, and above all by the phenome- 
non of tangible apparitions, which would imply, according to 
the contrary opinion (that, namely, of the identification of 
the spirit-body with the spiru or soul), the solidification and 
disintegration of the constituent parts of the soul, and conse- 
quently its disorganization. It would be necessary, besides, 
to admit that this matter which can fall under the scrutiny 
of the senses is itself the intelligent principle ; which is no 
more rational than to confound the body with the soul, or the 
clothing with the body. As to the intimate nature of the 
soul, it is unknown to us. 

" When we call it immaterial," saysKardec, "we must un- 
derstand the word in the relative and not in the absolute 



148 BACON ON THE SPIRIT-BODY. 

sense, for absolute immateriality would be nothingness ; now 
the spirit is surely something, one might say that its essence 
is so superior that it has no analogy with what we call matter, 
and that for us it is immaterial. ,, 

Bacon's theory of the soul is like that of nearly all the 
great seers and mediums. [Seepage 86.] He, too, regards 
man as a trinity of earth-body, spirit-body, and spirit. As is 
God, so also, according to Bacon, is the spirit (spiraculum), 
which God has breathed into man, scientifically incognizable ; 
only the physical soul, which is a thin, warm, material sub- 
stance, is an object of scientific knowledge. 

"Two different emanations of souls," says Bacon, "are 
manifest in the first creation, the one proceeding from the 
breath of God, the other from the elements." No knowledge 
of the rational soul (the spirit) can be had from philosophy ; 
but in the doctrine of the sensitive, or produced soul (the 
spiritual body), even its substance, says Bacon, may be justly 
inquired into. " The sensitive soul must be allowed a corpo- 
real substance, attenuated by heat and rendered invisible, as 
a subtle breath, or aura, of a flamy and airy nature, and dif- 
fused through the whole body." 

Thoroughly acquainted with the spiritual phenomena of 
his day, and of antecedent times, Bacon teaches unequivocal- 
ly the doctrine of the spiritual body and of the three-fold na- 
ture of terrestrial man. He says: "But how the compres- 
sions, dilatations and agitations of the spirit, which, doubt- 
less, is the spring of motion, should guide and rule the corpo- 
real and gross mass of the parts, has not yet been diligently 
searched into and treated." 

"And no wonder," he adds, "since the sensitive soul it- 
self," by which he means the spirit body, "has been hitherto 
taken for a principle of motion, and a function, rather than a 
substance. But as it is now known to be material, it becomes 
necessary to inquire by what efforts so subtile and minute a 
breath can put such gross and solid bodies in motion." 

"This spirit of which we speak," continues Bacon, "is 
plainly a body, rare and invisible, quantitative, real, not 
withstanding it is circumscribed by space." 



PLUTAKCH ON MEDIUMSHIP. 14< 

Bacon admits the facts of clairvoyance, or divination, and 
distinguishes between that proceeding from the internal pow- 
er of the soul, as "in sleep, ecstasies, and the near approach 
of death," and that which comes from influx through " a sec- 
ondary illumination, from the foreknowledge of God and 
spirits." 

Never was I more impressed by Bacon's greatness as a sa- 
gacious interpreter of natural facts, than when I found him 
thus anticipating the highest conclusions of Modern Spirit- 
ualism, both on the subject of the spiritual body and on the 
distinction between the knowledge that is explicable by a 
theory of psychic force, and that knowledge which must 
come from "the illumination of God and spirits." 

The questions raised by Dr. Eogers, Count Gasparin. Ser- 
jeant Cox and others, as to whether odic force or psychic 
force may not explain all the phenomena of Spiritualism, are 
here, with the discrimination of one who had studied all the 
facts of divination, and who speaks with unquestionable au- 
thority, decided in conformity with the views of Spiritual- 
ists. 

It is true that Bacon adopts or reannounces opinions on this 
subject that may be found in Plutarch ; but this does not de- 
tract from his merit as an original observer. He had verified 
the facts which Plutarch knew. In regard to mediumship, 
Plutarch explains how the violent ecstasy of inspiration re- 
sults from the contest of two opposite emotions, the higher 
divine or spiritual emotion communicated to the medium, and 
the natural one proper to the medium himself ; just as an un- 
easy struggle between the natural and the communicated motion 
is produced in bodies to which, while by their nature they gravi- 
tate to the earth, a gyratory movement has been communicated. 

"Everything pertaining to the Deity," says Plutarch, "in 
and by itself, is beyond our power of perception, and when it 
reveals itself to us through some other agent (or medium), it 
mixes itself up with the proper nature of that medium." 

Here we have it explained why Swedenborg, Harris, Davis, 
and all other mediums, as well as inferior spirits, mix up 



150 THE CREATION OUT OF NOTHING. 

errors with their communications of truth. Were it other* 
wise (could we accept any teacher as really infallible), 
would not our mental freedom be impaired, and much intel- 
lectual effort paralyzed? 

Kardec's spirits merely repeat the teachings of Bacon as to 
the nature of the perisprit, or spiritual body. It constitutes 
for the spirit a fluidic, vaporous envelope, which, though in- 
visible to us in its normal state, and in our normal state, does 
not the less possess some of the properties of matter. A spirit, 
then, is not a point, an abstraction, but a being, limited and 
circumscribed, to whom are wanting only the properties of 
visibility and palpability to resemble human beings. Why, 
then, can it not act on n.atter? Does not imponderable light 
exercise a chemical action on ponderable matter ? 

Newton tells us that the effluvium of a magnet can be so 
rare and subtle as to pass, without any resistance or any 
diminution of its force, through a plate of glass, and yet be so 
potent as to turn a magnetic needle beyond the glass. Why, 
then, may not the will-power of a spirit suffice to produce (as 
we know that it does) the most amazing effects upon matter? 

We can now realize the profound meaning in that remark 
of Joubert : " To create the universe an atom of matter sufficed." 

Nothing is made out of nothing ; but the sovereign power 
of God is not nothing : it is the source of matter as well as of 
spirit. 

Even so orthodox an authority as the Catholic World (New 
York, 1874,) says : "Nothingness is to be considered, under 
God's hand, as a negative potency of something real" 

And if an equally high Protestant authority were needed, 
I might quote Christlieb (1874), who says: "Although God 
is spirit, he has, nevertheless, a nature which we may term 
substantial. It is designated as light and fire." 

The creation out of nothing is virtually abandoned by ad- 
missions like these ; and they render some form of Panthe- 
ism inevitable. It must be a form involved in that of The- 
ism, as the less is in the greater. Bruno, the martyr philoso- 
pher, who was burnt at the stake in 1600, tells us truly : "If 



THE SPIRIT-BQHY. 151 

you think aright you will find a divine essence in all things." 
But he adds that, though it is impossible to conceive Nature 
separated from God, we can conceive God separated from Na- 
ture. God, he tells us, is super essentialis, supersubstantialis. 
Though He caused the universe, He is not limited by it. In 
this conception lies the truth which must reconcile the pan- 
theistic demand of science and the theistic demand of theol- 
ogy and faith. 

According to Swedenborg, that which underlies matter and 
is its substance, flows forth from the Divine substance. But 
mind causes, or rather cooperates to cause, the form, inci- 
dents, and appearance, under which we give to this substance 
the name of Matter. This is not a false appearance ; it is a 
reality, but of it we can know nothing, save from the action 
of mind on the impressions made by this substance on the 
mind through and by means of the senses. The importance 
of this truth lies in the rational belief it permits us of a body, 
a home, and a world, when we leave this world. If material 
substance is but the effluence from and of the Divine sub- 
stance, caused to affect us in a certain way in this world, the 
same effluence may provide for us a spiritual body and a 
spiritual world.* 

The matter of the spirit-body is flexible and expansible ; it 
changes at the will of the spirit, who can give himself such or 
such an appearance at his pleasure. It is because of this 
property of his fluidic envelope that the spirit who wishes to 
be recognized by friends on the earth can present the exact 
appearance he had when living ; re-producing even the bodily 
scars or malformations by which he was marked. 
Spirits, says Milton, 

w l in what shape they please, 

Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure, 

Can execute their airy purposes, 

And works of love or enmity fulfill. ' ' 
"It is an extravagant conjecture of mine," says Locke, 
that spirits can assume to themselves bodies of different bulk, 
figure, and conformation of parts." 
* See '•'The Infinite and the Finite," by Theophilas Parsons; p. 15. 



152 THE SPIRIT-BODY. 

Spirit hands may be the visible and tangible parts of an in- 
visible intangible being ; but sometimes they are tangible 
without being visible, and sometimes visible without being 
tangible. The instantaneous disappearance of materialized 
bodies or parts of the bodies, proves that the matter of which 
they are composed is eminently subtle, bearing some resem- 
blance, perhaps, to those substances that can pass alternately 
from the solid to the fluid, or gaseous state, and vice versa. 
Here a new order of facts is introduced, and science may 
some day discover anew law for their explanation. 

"Is it not in the most rarefied gas, in the most imponder- 
able fluids,' ■ asks Kardec, "that industry finds its most 
powerful motors ?" What is there, then, strange in admitting 
that a spirit, by the aid of his spirit-body, can raise a table ? 

"Being able to take all appearances," says Kardec, "the 
spirit presents himself under that by which he would be most 
readily recognized, if such is his desire. ^Esop, for example, 
as a spirit is not deformed ; but if he is evoked as iEsop, he 
will appear ugly and humpbacked, with the traditional cos- 
tume. . . . If the simply visual apparition might be attributed 
to illusion, the doubt is not permitted when you can grasp it, 
handle it, when it seizes you and holds you fast. However 
extraordinary these phenomena may be, all the marvelous 
disappears when we learn that far from being contrary to 
Nature's laws, they are only a new application of them." 

By its nature and in its normal state, the spirit-body is in- 
visible, and it has that property in common with many fluids 
which we know exist, and yet which we have never seen ; but 
it can also, the same as other fluids, undergo modifications 
that render it perceptible to the sight, whether by a sort of 
condensation or by a change in the molecular disposition ; it 
then appears to us under a vaporous form. 

By further condensation the spirit-body may acquire the 
properties of solidity and tangibility ; but it can instantane- 
ously resume its ethereal and invisible state. 

We can understand this state by comparing it with that of 
invisible vapor, which can pass to a state of visible fog, then 



SPIRIT ACTION ON MATTER. 153 

become liquid, then solid, and vice versa. These different 
states of the spirit-body are the result of the will of the spirit, 
and not an exterior physical cause, as in our gases. 

According to Kardec, when the spirit appears to us he puts 
the spirit-body into the state necessary to render him visible. 
In order to do this, his will is ordinarily insufficient ; for the 
modification of the spirit-body is effected by its combination 
with the fluid of the medium ; but this combination is not al- 
ways possible, which explains why the visibility of spirits is not 
general. It is not enough that the spirit desires to be seen ; 
it is not enough that a person desires to see him ; it is neces- 
sary that the two fluids should combine, and that the medium's 
supply should be sufficient ; perhaps, also, that there should 
be other conditions to us unknown at present.* 

Another property of the spirit-body and which pertains to 
its ethereal nature, is penetrability. Matter is no obstacle to 
its passage through everything, even as the light passes 
through transparent bodies. This is why no closing can shut 
out spirits ; they visit the prisoner in his cell as easily as they 
do the man in the open fields. 

In regard to the materialization of articles of clothing, or- 
naments, flowers, &c, Kardec questioned the spirits closely, 
and here is the result : The spirit acts on matter ; he draws 
from the universal cosmic matter the elements necessary to 
form, at his will, objects having the appearance of various 
bodies which exist on the earth. He can also by his will 
effect an intimate transformation of elementary matter, and 
impart to it certain properties. This faculty is inherent in 
the nature of the spirit, who often, when necessary, exercises 
it without thinking, as an instinctive act. The objects formed 
by the spirit have a temporary existence ; he can make and 
unmake them at will. These objects may become visible and 
tangible to earthly persons ; and could be made to have a 
character of permanence and stability ; but this, according 
to Kardec's informant, is contrary to order, and is not done. 

* See ll The Book on Mediums, by Allan Kardec ; " an excellent trans- 
lation of which into English by Emma A. Wood has been published Of 
Oolby & Rich, Boston, Mass. 1 have been indebted to it in these qu»** 
tions from Kardec. 



154 THE UNITY OF FORCES. 

It was done, however, in the experiments at which Profess- 
or Crookes, Mr. Harrison, and many others were present ; 
and some of the cloth which Katie cut from her tunic still re- 
mains materialized. It was said by the spirit, however, that 
a special effort was needed to give the cloth this character of 
stability. 

From the facts here brought together, it may be inferred 
that the spirit-body is not a mere hypothesis ; it is proved by 
the phenomena and the inductions of Spiritualism ; by the 
objective appearance of spirits themselves in bodies ; by the 
testimony of clairvoyants who oan see spirits in the human 
form ; by the phenomena of somnambulism and clairvoyance, 
indicating supersensual powers, requiring organs other than 
those of the physical body ; by all the analogies which reason 
and experience supply ; and by the belief of men in all ages 
and climes, a belief founded on the actual reappearance 
after death of deceased relatives and friends. 

Add to these considerations the facts of double conscious- 
ness, pointing to a double organism ; also the marvels of 
memory, in which faculty impressions inhere and persist 
which are inexplicable under the theory of materialism, in- 
volving a constant flux and removal of the molecules of the 
organs of thought. Only the existence of a spiritual body 
can account for these things. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The existence of a single elementary substance or force, 
from which, by differentiation, transformation, and the ad- 
justment of proportions, all the varieties and properties of 
matter are produced, is an hypothesis to which the whole 
drift of contemporary science is bringing us nearer with 
every fresh accession of knowledge. 

We know that a very slight change in the arrangement of 



ORIGIN OF FORCE. 155 

elemental particles converts wholesome food into poison. Two 
harmless substances, combined in certain proportions, can 
produce a deleterious one. Without changing the propor- 
tions, a slight change in the molecular arrangement changes 
properties ; makes the opaque transparent ; the palatable, un- 
savory. 

" Since the spirit/ ' says Kardec, " has by his simple will so 
powerful an action on elementary matter, it may be conceived 
that he cannot only form substances, but can denaturalize 
their properties, will having herein the effect of a re-agent." 

If, as Liebig, Dumas, and other chemists have asserted, all 
plants and animals are solidified air, why may not all matter 
be the product of solidified forces, having their origin in the 
essence and ultimate reason of things— in that force and ne- 
cessity which derive all their virtue from the Divine Idea ? 
This is no fanciful inquiry ; its practical interest and impor- 
tance are brought nearer to us every day by the advance of 
science. 

The phenomena here recorded show that matter is not al- 
together the stuff which our senses would make it appear. 
" The force which every being is possessed of," says Yera, 
"as well as the form or law according to which it acts and 
displays its powers, lies in its very nature, i. e., in its idea. 
The difference of forces is owing to the difference of ideas. 
Matter is a force, and the soul is a force, and, as forces, 
they are the product of one and the same idea, and both pro- 
duce similar effects ; for instance, the soul moves the body, 
and a body moves another body. Their difference is to be 
found in their specific elements, or in what constitutes their 
special idea ; for instance, space, and time, extent, attraction 
and repulsion, &c, for matter ; imagination, will, thought, 
&c, for the soul."* 

As idea is force, and the source of all forces, so if there be 
no diminution in the quantity of force, it is because its princi- 
ple, its idea, suffers no deterioration. 

* Bee A. Vera on * ■ Ideas as Essence and Force, ■ ' in the St. Louis Jour- 
nal of Speculative Philosophy for July, 1874. 



156 SPIRIT PRIOR TO MATTER. 

If a materialized spirit— by which I mean a spirit animat* 
ing a visible, tangible body— can make the matter thus em- 
bodied dissolve and then at once reappear by an effort of the 
will, it is not difficult to conceive that the universe itself may 
be a concretion of forces, the trunk-force of which is in the 
Divine Idea. 

While Spiritualism is in harmony with many of the facts on 
which the Darwinian theory is based, it supplies a new order 
of facts from which we infer that the idea must ever precede 
the organism ; and that the attempt to prove that this idea is 
developed through immense periods of time by purely physi- 
cal means and processes is a fallacy. " Living beings/ ' says 
Stirling, " do exist in a mighty chain from the moss to the 
man ; but that chain, far from founding, is founded in the 
idea, and is not the result of any mere natural growth into 
this or that. That chain is itself the most brilliant stamp and 
sign-manual of design.' ' 

" Even granting," says Vera, "that the germ be endowed 
with an inexhaustible power of begetting similar individuals, 
or that it should contain, like some infinitesimal quantity, an 
infinite number of germs, such hypotheses will explain neither 
the initial germ, nor the unity of the species, nor even the 
grown-up and complete individual. . . . The idea must 
constitute the common stock, and the ultimate principle to 
which the individual, the species, and the genus, owe their 
origin and existence.' ' 

" Thought is a motion of matter," says Moleschott. But 
this is no more of an explanation than it would be to try to 
account for the sentiment and the charm in a melody of Mo- 
zart's by saying, " It is a motion of matter." All that science 
can fairly hypothecate is, that Thought is accompanied by a 
motion of matter ; for, were the head and brain so transparent 
that this motion could be seen, the mystery of thought would 
be as far as ever from being solved. 

" JVo thought without phosphorus," says Moleschott* He 



* Locke must have had a presentiment of the appearance of a Moleschott 
on our planet, for he says: "' A chemist shall reduce Divinity to the max- 
ims of his laboratory, explain morality by sal, sulphur and mercury. Let 



TYKDALL ON ATOMS. 157 

might as reasonably have said, No thought without rhubarb. 
Spiritualism proves that there can be thought without any 
brain which a mortal chemist can analyze. Liebig's sarcasm 
is perfectly just when he says, that the bones should produce 
more thought than the brain, if Moleschott's asseveration is 
true. ' " The honor of the discovery that phosphorus exists in 
the brain," says Liebig, " belongs not to me, but to Dr. Mole- 
schott ; and in my Chemical Letters I have declared it to be a 
mistaken idea, not based on a single fact." 

To Liebig's remark, ''We know nothing of the origin of an 
idea," Biichner's reply is, that "None but a mind prejudiced 
in favor of a superstition " could make such an assertion ; and 
yet ali the light which Buchner himself can throw on the ori- 
gin of an idea is to repeat Moleschott's assertion, that thought 
is a motion of matter ; an assertion which, whether true or 
false, could never be proved, even if we were to exclude those 
spiritual facts which disprove it utterly. 

"We do not know," says Materialism, "all the powers of 
matter, its magical and spiritual nature, and its life eternal." 

Then if we do not know them, how can any one say that 
they are not what is meant by spirit ? The physiologist of 
mind, who would trace it to simple brain motion, is compared 
by Ferrier to the uuheeding woodman who severs the bough 
on which he stands; for " being cannot be meaningless; its 
essence must be conscious intelligence." 

Mr. Tyndall would trace all the phenomena of mind and 
matter to the potencies of atoms. He allows Theism, how- 
ever, to entertain its little hypothesis, and leaves it an open 
question whether atoms may not have had a Divine Creator. 

" Abandoning all disguise," he says, "the confession I feel 
bound to make before you is, that I prolong the vision back- 
ward across the boundaiy or the experimental evidence, and 
discern in that matter which we, in our ignorance, and not- 



a man be given to the contemplation of one sort of knowledge, and that 
will become everything.' 1 With the sanguine positiveness of a youthful 
scientist, JMoleschott (1802) says: "It is not reflection, but obstinacy, not 
science, but faith, which supports the idea of a personal continuance after 
death.'" Why not be consistent, and call this obstinacy a defect of phos- 
phorus in the brain ? 



158 CAN MATTEK EVOLVE MIND. 

withstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have 
hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of 
every form and quality of life."* 

I agree with Mr. Tyndall that there is nothing very alarm- 
ing in the mild and contradictory materialism that would not 
exclude the postulate of a Creator behind and beyond mat- 
ter. His " confession' ' is not a startling one, either to the 
Materialist or the Spiritualist ; for it is an attempt to sit at 
the same time on the stools of both ; nor is it striking for its 
novelty. 

Spiritualism casts no "opprobrium" on matter, since it 
holds that individualized mind must, in the next stage of be- 
ing, continue to manifest itself through an organism, and 
this organism must be something. 

If Mr. Tyndall means merely to repeat Locke, and say that 
all that he would suggest is, that matter may be divinely im- 
pressed, with the power of generating mind, then he at once 
spiritualizes matter, and lowers the flag of materialism. 

But this is not what he means. When he tells us that 
matter may contain "the promise and potency of every 
form and quality of life, " what he means, obviously, is 
that, among other qualities of life which mere matter may 
evolve, is that of mind. Now this idea has been often put 
forth, long before Mr. Tyndall's day, and as often answered. 
By no one has it been answered better than by Schelliug 
(1775-1854), who said of the attempts, in his day, to make 
matter account for all the phenomena of life : "To explain 
thinking as a material phenomenon, is possible only in this 
way : that we reduce Matter itself to a spectre— to the mere 
modification of an Intelligence whose common functions are 
thinking and matter." 

Coleridge, who was accustomed to borrow from Schelling, 
expresses the same idea thus, and his words fully answer all 
that Mr. Tyndall has to say about matter : "As soon as ma- 

* On reconsideration Professor Tyndall modified this expression. The 
revised form of it is as follows : ^ By an intellectual necess ry I cross tho 
boundary of experimental evidence, and discern in that matter which we, 
in our ignorance of irs latent powers . . . have hitherto covered wilt 
opprobrium, the promise and potency of all terrestrial life. ' ■ 



ATIIEiSM UNSCIENTIFIC. 159 

terialism becomes intelligible, it ceases to be materialism. In 
order to explain thinking as a material phenomenon, it is ne- 
cessary to refine matter into a mere modification of intelli- 
gence, with the two-fold function of appearing and perceiv- 
ing. Even so did Priestley, in his controversy with Price. ,, 
(Even so would Tyndall do now !) " He stripped matter of 
all its material properties ; substituted spiritual powers ; and 
when we expected to find a body, behold ! we had nothing 
but its ghost — the apparition of a defunct substance I" 

"To say that matter is the principle of all things, ,, re- 
marks Paul Janet, "is simply equivalent to saying, We do 
not know what is the principle of all things— a very luminous 
science indeed ! Even in its claim that matter is eternal, Ma- 
terialism has to beg its premises, and to proceed wholly on a 
metaphysical, a priori assumption. If Materialism does not 
explain matter, much less does it explain mind and thought." 

The ignorance which philosophical science is always com- 
pelled to avow, in regard to first causes, makes dogmatic 
atheism impossible for the truly scientific mind. The skepti- 
cal attitude is legitimate ; the coarse confidence which de- 
nounces all belief in a Supreme Being, is the prod aimer of 
its own insufficiency and charlatanry. Mr. Tyndall is far 
from this.* If he chooses to call by the name of Matter 
the unknown something that produces Mind, he is at perfect 
liberty to do so. Others may prefer to call it by the name of 
Spirit. In the "prolongation of his vision backward" he has 
got as far as atoms. But we have seen that the Materialism 
which stops at atoms is false and imperfect, since it would 
localize, in them, properties for which atoms supply no 
cause. If atoms are the ultimate reality, the one real sub- 

*Since this was written, Prof. Tyndall has disclaimed atheistic inten- 
tioi^s. He says: t,, Were the religious views of many of my assailants 
the only alternative ones, 1 do not know how strong the claims of thedoe- 
trine of material U-Zt<u ^thcix™ upon my allegiance might be. Probably 
they would be very strong. But, as it is, I have noticed, during years of 
self-observation, that it is not in hours of clearness and vigor that this 
doctrine commends itself to my mind; that in the presence of stronger 
and healthier ti ought.it ever dissolves and disappears, as offering no solu- 
tion of the mystery in which we dwell, and of which we form a part.'" 
Let us hope th it Prof. Tyndall will, even in this life, outgrow his bigoted 
opposition to the facts of Spiritualism. In those 1 ' hours of clearness and 
vigor," of which he speaks, does he never feel a little shaky in the arro- 
gant position he has assumed toward the testimony of such men as Wal- 
lace and Crookes ? 



160 THE UNITY OF FORCES. 

stance, then there is no place for spirit, no future for man ; an 
assumption wholly disproved by the facts of this volume. 

In the fullness of time Modern Spiritualism has come forth 
to demonstrate that the atomic theory must be supplemented 
by the spiritual fact. That same Spiritualism which Mr. 
Tyndall, in his unscientific spleen, dismisses as " degrading,'* 
shows by its phenomenal evidences, as here recorded and au- 
thenticated^ that there is a power using these atoms at its 
pleasure, ruling them, instead of being ruled by them. 

Mr. Tyndall refers to certain "rash and ill-informed per- 
sons'' as " being ready to hurl themselves against every new 
scientific revelation." Alas! Is he himself one of these 
rash, ill-informed persons ? So it would seem ; for, chafe as 
he may, and sneer as he may, the facts of Spiritualism are 
now facts of Science; and he is so "ill-informed" as not to 
have found it out, and so "rash" as to put himself on the rec- 
ord against them. 

He conducts us as far back as atoms, and there sets up his 
board, labeled, No Thoroughfare. But Spiritual Science dis- 
regards his warning and passes on ; whither i the next chap- 
ter may show. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Modern Science, including, as it does, Modern Spiritualism, 
helps us to a conception of a force behind and beyond atoms.* 

The unity of all phenomena was the dream of ancient phi- 
losophy. T£ reduce all this multiplicity of things to a single 
principle has*been, and continues to be, the ever-recurring 
problem. Water, air, fire, the primary elements, were sever- 



* For the facts and some of the language of this chapter, see the untrans- 
lated works of Emile Barnouf, especially hi^ "■ La Science des Religions; " 
the "TJnHy of Natural Phenomena" of Emile Saigey ; the ""Constitu- 
tion of Matter " of Fernand PapiHon; and the papers on "-Matter, Ether, 
and Spirit, ,1 hy the late Israel Dille, which have appeared in Brittan^ 
Quarterly Journal of Spiritual Science. My principal indebtedness is tt 
Barnouf. 






CHEMISTRY TENDS TO UNITY. 161 

ally and collectively imagined, by the great thinkers of anti 
quity, as the original factor. 

To the question of a unity of substance, Greek science re- 
peatedly applied itself. 

The innumerable varieties informs, qualities, and habits, in 
both the vegetable and animal kingdonr ~\iggest the exist- 
ence of forces adequate to the production of all the differ- 
entiations in nature. Hence to mount to the scientifie con- 
ception of a single force as the originator and regulator of 
alKhese minor forces is the legitimate effort of all profound 
thought on the subject. 

It was this craving for unity, which led the white men of 
Asia, the ancient Aryan race, to the conception of God as the 
one substance, immanent in the universe. At first they were 
polytheists, but with the progress of thought their number of 
gods diminished, and the authors of the Yeda at last arrived 
at the conception of a unity of forces, of a Divine Power as 
the ultimate substratum of things. They regarded the beings 
of the world as, in effect, composed of two elements : the one 
real and of a nature permanent and absolute, and the other 
relative, flowing, variable, and phenomenal ; the one spirit, 
the other matter, but both proceeding from an inseparable 
unity, a single substance. 

The unity of physical forces is the point on which Science 
has its eyes now fixed. Materialism is not more eager than 
Spiritualism for the proof. Already has it been demonstrated 
that heat, electricity, light, magnetism, chemical attraction, 
muscular energy, and mechanical work, are exhibitions of 
one and the same power acting through matter. That all 
these forces may be transformed into motion, and by motion 
reproduced, is now something more than an hypothesis. . 
Hence the deduction that all physical phenomena have one and 
the same primordial agent as their original generator. 

Chemistry, by its theory of equivalents, is tending to unity. 
Few intelligent chemists now regard the elements ranked as 
simple as being simple any further than the present imper- 
fection of our instruments compels us to class them as such 
11 



162 THE UNITY OF FORCES. 

The employment of the balance has demonstrated that in the 
chemical transformations of bodies, nothing is created, noth- 
ing is lost. 

Hence the sum of the material elements is constant, and, 
as it is impossible to conceive a limit to the universe, this 
sum is infinite ; and thus the aspects so various which matter 
presents consist only in the forms it successively takes on ac- 
cording to the combinations of its chemical elements. 

But the substance of things evades all chemical testing ; 
and so the simple bodies of chemistry are themselves only 
forms, more or less elementary, the agglomeration of which 
produces compounds. 

If by the theory of equivalents these forms should be some 
day reduced to unity, chemistry will be entitled to infer, with 
some reason, the substantial unity of the universe. 

Neither the primitive cell, regarded as an elementary form 
of life, nor any principle known to science, suffices to explain 
life itself, or that power of action which is in the living being 
at all the epochs of its existence, and consequently in the 
cell. In addition, therefore, to the material and sensible ele- 
ments, there must be in it a principle inaccessible to observa- 
tion ; and it is this principle which is the agent of life, the 
impelling cause of vital motion and of all differentiations. 

But the reduction of all living forms to unity, that is, to the 
cell, is an indication that the vital agent is itself a form of 
the one primitive force, and thus physiology tends to unity 
by the way of morphology ; and this reduction of organs to 
unity may be proved for plants as well as for animals. 

The unity of the principle of life and thought is another 
conclusion, to which science is tending in the department of 
physiology. Every primary germ owes its evolution to the 
spirit or idea involved. If the cell is the most elementary 
form of the living being, the principle of life which it en- 
closes cannot be developed except in so far as the form at 
which it ought to an ive resides in it already in the state of 
idea. This idea expands with the life, ramifies with it, accom- 
modates itself to the means and conditions which the general 



SPIRITUALISM SUGGESTS UNITY. 165 

order of the universe imposes ; and thus the study of the psy- 
chical nature of man points also in the direction of unity. 
Spiritualism, through all its facts, is suggestive of unity. 

The embryo is preserved by intelligent processes of which 
neither itself nor its parent knows anything. This intelli- 
gence is a property of the life by which they live. 

This life, what is it but the pervading efflux of the deific 
love and life vivifying all nature and sustaining the animal 
ana vegetable world as well as the world ot mind? 

Should it be objected that this proves too much ; that it in- 
volves the identity of the vital principle of animals and veg- 
etables, let us not shrink from the conclusion. The essential 
unity of all spirit and all life with this exuberant life from 
God is a truth from which we need not recoil, even though it 
bring all animal and vegetable forms within the sweep of im- 
mortality. 

The universe is not dead. Think you this earth of ours is a 
lifeless, unsentient bulk, while the worm on her surface is in 
the enjoyment of life ? To an inquiry whether the soul is im- 
mortal, Apollonius, one of the greatest of the ancient medi- 
ums, replied, " Yes, immortal — but like everything." 

These suns, systems, planets and satellites are not mere 
mechanisms. The pulsations of a divine life throb in them 
all, and make them rich in the sense that they too are parts 
of the divine cosmos. Dissolution, disintegration and change 
are not death while an immortal principle survives. 

" Science," says the Duke of Argyll, "in the modern doc- 
trine of the conservation of energy and the convertibility of 
forces, is already getting a firm hold of the idea, that all kinds 
of force are but forms of manifestations of one central force 
issuing from some one fountain head of power. Sir John Iler- 
schel has not hesitated to say, that ' it is but reasonable to re- 
gard the force of gravitation as the direct or indirect result of a 
consciousness or a will existing somewhere.' " 

In support of the identity of life and spirit, the Spiritualist 
will find some unexpected allies. Even so orthodox a teacher 
as President Noah Porter comes up to the vindication of the 



164: THE UNITY OF FORCES. 

grand truth, and in vindicating it he has to lend his support 
to the inevitable doctrine of a spiritual body. 

11 The soul," he says, "beginning to exist as the principle 
of life, may have the power to create other bodies than the physi- 
cal for itself, or it may already have formed another medium 
or body in the germ, and may hold it ready for occupation and 
use as soon as it sloughs off the one which connects it with the 
earth. . . . The evidence of observation and of facts is de- 
cisive that the soul begins its existence as a vital agency, and 
emerges by a gradual waking into the conscious activities of 
its higher nature." 

The soul which has had enough divine intelligence to pre- 
pare for itself a body in this world may be trusted to have, 
ready a fitting substitute when death loosens the physical tie. 
If from a little microscopic cell, by successive differentiations, 
it may evolve man's complex organism, surely it may, from 
its higher point of being, evolve future organisms suited to its 
more advanced states. 

But it is not merely Protestant theology that concurs in this 
view of the soul as the vivifying principle, active not only in 
the formation and functional processes of the body, but in 
the exercise of man's conscious activities. The highest Cath- 
olic authority teaches the identity of the vital and the pi y- 
chical principle. By a brief dated April 30th, 1860, the Pope 
declares that the doctrine of the substantial unity of the prin- 
ciple of life and that of thought is according to faith, and he 
condemns any contrary opinion as inconsistent with Catholic 
teaching. 

Both Plato and Aristotle had taught this doctrine. They 
tell us that the life comes from the soul ; from that which 
feels and thinks, " No," says Descartes; "the soul is that 
which thinks ; consequently we must not attribute to it vital 
phenomena of which it has no consciousness." To this objec- 
tion Leibnitz replies that we certainly do have confused, in- 
distinct perceptions of which we are not conscious at the time. 
Leibnitz plainly refers to what in our day Dr. Carpenter calls 
unconscious cerebration. 



REASON SUGGESTS UNITY. 165 

G. E. Stahl (1660-1734,) going somewhat further than Leib- 
nitz, and anticipating the doctrine of unconscious cerebra- 
tion, shows that there are mental operations independent of 
consciousness. He teaches that the true principle of life is 
the soul. Were this soul blind and unintelligent, it would 
do no rnore and no better than matter itself ; but if it is capa 
ble of directing the movements of the body towards an end, 
it is because it is intelligent ; in what then does it differ from 
the rational soul or spirit ? True, in our normal state, it 
may not have a consciousness of all its acts ; but from this it 
does not at all follow that it may not perform them. 

The facts of double consciousness, apparent in the phe- 
nomena of somnambulism, mesmerism, and Spiritualism, con- 
firm these views. They show that the nature of the soul is 
complex ; that this complexity may include the vital processes; 
and that both intelligence and life may be the resultants of a 
single force. 

" No proof of the soul's immortality," says Papillon, "is 
so strong as that we draw from the necessary simplicity and 
eternity of all the principles of force. Nothing bears witness 
so powerfully to the majestic reality of a God as the spectacle 
of those diversities, all harmonious, which rule the infinite 
range of forces, and bind in unity the ordered pulses of the 
world." 

There is a principle of moral and intellectual unity, and we 
call it reason. Were all the facts of observation established 
as absolute truths, admitted by science, discussion would 
cease and there would be no more diversity of opinion. Now 
psychology demonstrates that the two or three general formu- 
las or principles of reason are but the analytical development 
of one single idea, to which we may give what name we see 
fit, but which religion and philosophy almost unanimously 
call the idea of God. 

"This idea," says' Burnouf, "constitutes the basis of 
thought in all its degrees. In man it leads to the highest re- 
gions of speculation ; to all animals it gives the means of 
motion, of alimentation, of reproduction ; to every living 



166 THE UNITY OF FORCES. 

thing it gives the general form of life. It resides in the cell i 
it gives unity to the infinite movements and to the innumera* 
ble shapes of the universe.' ' 

"All existence," says Oersted, " is a dominion of Reason. 
The laws of Nature are laws of reason, and all together form 
an endless unity of reason, one and the same throughout the 
universe." 

Thus in physical science, in astronomy and chemistry, for 
the inorganic world, and in physiology and psychology for 
the world of living beings, the tendency at this moment is 
toward unity, and all the analyses of science, physical and 
psychical, converge in this direction. 

"What do we know of an atom, apart from force?" asks 
Faraday. "You conceive a nucleus, which may be called a, 
and you surround it with forces, which may be called m ; to 
my mind, your a, or nucleus, vanishes, and substance con- 
sists in the energy of m. In fact, what notion can we form 
of a nucleus, independent of its energy?" 

Thus is scientific thought forever shadowing forth the hy- 
pothesis that matter, in its last analysis, must be resolved 
into force ; and thus we find it is no chimerical dream to sup- 
pose that the deific idea constitutes at once the essential form 
and the substance of things. 

If the prospect is that in this all-embracing unity matter 
and spirit will be made to appear as phenomenal manifesta- 
tions of one divine substance, let us not be alarmed. Pan- 
theism is true as far as it goes, but it must be supplemented 
by Theism before the whole truth can be apprehended ; nor 
is there contradiction in this. The notion of a creation out 
of nothing is now so modified by the most advanced, Chris- 
tian theologians, that it is virtually abandoned. At once 
intramundane and supramundane, immanent and transcend- 
ent, God appears, more and more to the modern conception, 
as both automatic Nature and absolute Spirit. 

" The difficulties of thought," says Picton, "the silence of 
the heavens, the actual breathing, deathless beauty of crea- 
tion, command us, with an inspiration which the age will not 



SPIRITUALISM AND THEISM. 167 

resist, to see God not so much as the meditative Designer who 
makes, but rather as the Eternal Power which constitutes 
and is the All in All." 

As we draw nearer to a principle of unity, we draw nearer 
to a conception of God. What relations has Spiritualism to 
this conception ? The answer was given when we found that 
Spiritualism, like every other science, teaches the unity of all 
forces and all phenomena. But the question shall have a fur- 
ther consideration. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

The thinking spirit being itself of a divine, an immortal na- 
ture, the search after God seems inseparable from the devel- 
opment of our moral and intellectual faculties. Having, at 
least in our lower and normal state of consciousness, no ex- 
planation within ourselves of our existence, we rise to the con- 
ception of an infinite, uncaused, intelligent Power, having his 
reason for being within himself, and from whom the principle 
of our limited being is mysteriously derived. 

What bearing do the facts of Modern Spiritualism have on 
this theistic conception ? 

D'Holbach (1723-1789) , author of " LaSysteme de la Nature," 
and still perhaps the most famous of all atheistic writers, says : 
" It is necessary to fall back on the doctrine, so little probable, 
of a future life and of the immortality of the soul, in order to 
justify a belief in Divinity." 

Even in D'Holbach's view, the one belief necessarily involved 
the other. He could not well see how a Spiritualist could be 
an atheist. But he did not make allowance for all the incon- 
sistencies of human thought. 

"That we are to live hereafter," says Bishop Butler, "is 
just as reconcilable with the scheme of atheism, and as well 
to be accounted for by it, as that we are now alive is : and 



168 BELIEF IN GOD. 

therefore nothing can be more absurd than to argue from that 
scheme that there can be no future state.' ' 

Bishop Butler is right. Strange as it may seem, there are 
atheistic seers and atheistic spirits. 

At the first glance a belief in spirits would seem to facilitate 
belief in a Supreme Spirit, author and ruler of all ; and so it 
does. For one of the principal arguments of speculative athe- 
ism is annihilated by the very fact of the existence of a spirit, 
exercising clairvoyant powers, and independent of the mate- 
rial impediments of space and time. But history shows that 
a sincere belief in spirits and a future life may exist independ- 
ently of any belief in a God. The old polytheism was large- 
ly a belief in mere spirits ; and the uncivilized tribes who be- 
lieve fully in spirits are often found without a notion of any 
other deities than their departed ancestors and great men. 

Man, however, as he advances in culture, is forced to strug- 
gle with the theistic idea. That such a problem as the exist- 
ence of a God is placed before him is itself an earnest of 
his immortality ; a promise written in the very texture of 
his being that his profound questionings shall some day be 
answered. 

" Great," says Aime-Martin, "is the creature to whom it 
is allowed to imagine questions to which a God only can 
reply." 

So stupendous seems the question of a God in its propor- 
tions to our faculties as normally limited, that it is not sur- 
prising so many reverent minds should shrink from it alto- 
gether. "It is when we acknowledge that we do not know 
God, that we know him best," says St. Denis, the areopagite. 
"That which I conceive," says Fichte, "becomes finite 
through my very conception of it ; and this can never, even by 
endless exaltation, rise into the Infinite." 

But broader views of man's complex nature lead us to real- 
ize that the unfathomable exists in the human sou] as well as 
in the nature of God ; that we do not see the whole of man in 
his normal and material limitations ; that he has powers and 
a hidden intelligence, altogether unexplained by any experi- 



FINITE AND INFINITE. 169 

ence-tbeory, or any theory of hereditary transmission, or of 
knowledge got through the physical senses ; and we begin to 
have glimpses of actual relations of the finite to the Infinite. 
We learn, upon reflection, that it is not less difficult to com- 
prehend how a finite, derived and dependent being can exist, 
than to form a conception of an absolute, omnipotent and om- 
niscient God. 

To say that we bring God down to some measure of anthro- 
pomorphism by the very conception of him, is simply to beg 
the whole question, and to deny the inference which the phe- 
nomena of clairvoyance and Spiritualism abundantly author- 
ize—the inference, namely, that man has in himself an ele- 
ment relating him to the Infinite. 

The same motive that would keep us from studying the 
infinite, ought to deter us from studying the finite, since the in- 
finite is everywhere involved in it, and both are, in themselves, 
inscrutable. In every bud there is a mystery. Nothing, in 
its essence, can be known. The growth of a blade of grass 
is as unintelligible to us as the existence of a Supreme Being. 

From our own imperfections we are led to ask, Does not 
the finite and dependent require the infinite and absolute ? 
Does not derivative being require the conception of the Un- 
derived ? Does not an effect require a cause ; and, in the 
regress of causes, must we not stop at the uncaused Cause, 
the one Being who has within himself his reason of exist- 
3nce? 

In the eloquent words of Descartes: "We are the imper- 
fect ; we are the finite ; we are the caused. There must be 
One who is the complement of our being, the infinity of our 
finitude, the perfection of our imperfection ; a mind which 
gives us that which we have not from ourselves.' * 

The late Emile Saisset has given so beautiful a paraphrase 
of these ideas, that I cannot resist the temptation of trans- 
lating it here from the French : 

"I turn my thoughts in upon myself, and I say, Whence 
comes it that I cannot help thinking on God ? I exist, 1 live, 
I love to exist and to live ; I find around me thousands of ob- 



170 BELIEF 1ST GOD. 

jects capable of pleasing and of interesting me ; what need 1 
more for satisfying my soul, and why do I search for some- 
thing beyond? 

" Wby ? It is, too well I see, because I am imperfect, and 
surrounded by imperfection. When I consider my being, 1 
see it flow on like a rapid wave ; my ideas, my sensations, my 
desires all change from hour to hour, and around me I find no 
being that does not pass from movement to repose, from pro- 
gress to decline, from life to death. Amid these vicissitudes, 
even as one wave is pushed on by other waves, I roll onward 
in the immense torrent which is sweeping all things to un- 
known shores. Change, unceasing change, is the universal 
law, and such is my condition. 

"And the more I reflect, the more I see that this condition 
attaches to the very nature of things. Within me and with- 
out, all being is changing because it is limited. Here am I, 
shut up in a corner of space and time ; in vain do I stretch 
all the springs of my frail corporeal machine ; I can take in 
only the small number of objects which are proportioned and 
near to me. I think ; but among the innumerable truths of 
which I catch a glimpse, I can seize only a few, and even 
those on condition of concentrating my thought in a narrow 
circle, outside of which I see confusedly, or see not at all. I 
love, but my power of loving, which goes forth easily toward 
everything suggestive of some perfection, open or secret, can 
attach itself only to objects fragile, changing and perishable, 
none of which give me what they had promised. Every- 
where is limitation. Within me is an indefinite power of de- 
velopment which aspires to display itself in a thousand dif- 
ferent senses, and which, encountering everywhere limita- 
tions, sometimes strives vehemently to overleap them, and 
sometimes falls back weary, sinking and discouraged. This 
is why I change unceasingly, and why everything around me 
changes : it is because we are all — guests of this world, great 
or small, thinking atoms, or blades of grass, or grains of sand 
— we are all, in different degrees, and under forms infinitely 



MAN A RELATIVE BEING. 171 

variable, incomplete beings, striving for completion, and ap- 
proaching it only partially and imperfectly. 

" But why am I incomplete, and why under such a form, 
to such a degree, in such a time, in such a place? Why, in- 
deed, do I exist, instead of not existing? I am ignorant. 
And this proves to me invincibly that I have not within myself 
my reason of existence ; that my being is not the primal and 
absolute being, but a being relative and borrowed. 

"Now, every time that I regard my being as radically in- 
complete and incapable of existing by itself, I see dawning 
upon my soul the idea of the perfect one. I conceive of him 
as accomplished in all the infinite powers of his being. While 
I strive to reassemble, in this brief, fleeting span of time, the 
dispersed fragments of my life, and to develop some of my 
faculties, he, concentred in an immutable Present, enjoys the 
absolute plenitude of his being eternally unfolded. Every- 
where I meet limits, whether in the beings who surround and 
press upon me, or in the number, form and degree of my own 
faculties. But he is the being without limitations, the being 
unique and above all, the being to whom nothing can be 
wanting. All the potencies of life are in him— not only those 
of which I know something, but the infinite number of which 
I know nothing. Unequal and bounded in incomplete beings, 
they are there, the prey to struggle, to negation and to dis- 
accord. In him, all is infinite, positive, full, equal, unique, 
harmonious. This plenitude, this harmony, this unity of all 
the potencies of being— this is the good supreme, the first, the 
absolutely fair, the being of beings, God. 

" This idea of the perfect being commands my admiration. 
How vast it is— how"sublime ! But is it not too far from me ? 
Not at all. It is intimately near. Plunged in the movement 
of things that pass, 1 yield for an instant to the seduction of 
their attractions. In the spirit of pride and self-reliance, I 
may at times be dazzled and misled by the sentiment of my 
energy, of my knowledge and my powers ; but this is when I 
regard only the surface. As soon as I enter into and examine 
myself intimately, I am dismayed at my utter feeblness, my 



172 BELIEF IN GOD. 

inconsistency, the incurable fragility of my being ; and I feel 
that it would vanish away, had it not its support in the one 
veritable being. There is in this no effort of mind, no circuit 
of thought, no reasoning ; it is a sudden, spontaneous, irre- 
sistible sense of my imperfect soul, referring itself to its eter- 
nal principle, feeling itself to live and to be through him. 

" When I come to reflect and to reason upon these two ob- 
jects of my thought, the being imperfect that I am, and the 
being perfect by whom I exist, I see that to suppress either 
one of these two terms would be an insensate enterprise. 1 
find them at the end of all my analyses, at the beginning of 
all my reasonings. They form, in their indissoluble union, 
the permanent ground of my consciousness. 

" Can I think of the duration that is flowing, always pre- 
ceded and always followed by another duration, without con- 
ceiving of eternity? Can I represent to myself a certain 
space, enveloping a smaller space, and enveloped by a larger, 
without conceiving of immensity? Can I contemplate the 
finite being, the mobile, the developing, without conceiving 
of the infinite, the immutable, the accomplished ? These two 
ideas suggest, the one the other, and are enchained by a ne- 
cessary relation. Prior to the being imperfect, there is the 
being perfect ; prior to that which exists only in a manner 
temporary, local, relative, there is that which exists fully and 
absolutely. Behold that which is simple, clear, evident ; it 
is a natural axiom, the first of axioms ; it is the supreme law 
of my reason. Shall I attempt to destroy by an artifice of 
my reason what Nature has so profoundly graved in my con- 
sciousness ? 

"No! Man without God is an enigma, an inexplicable 
chimera. He has no longer a mission on this earth, nor a 
hope in worlds beyond. In losing his divine ideal, in essaying 
to take himself for his ideal, he falls below himself, and in 
having wished to make himself God, he ceases to be man." 

But all theistic speculation is dismissed as unscientific and 
unprofitable by the experience-philosophy of J. S. Mill, Her- 
bert Spencer, G. H. Lewes, and others. They tell us that 



THE EXPERIENCE-PHILOSOPHY. 17? 

science deals only with observed phenomena ; that cause, in 
the scientific sense, is the name given to the required condi- 
tions that antedate phenomenal changes ; and that the human 
mind has no right to reason about real cause and final pur- 
pose in the universe. 

But the experience- philosophy is shattered, from turret to 
foundation-stone, by the facts of clairvoyance and of Spirit- 
ualism ; for the experience-philosophy rests on the assump- 
tion that we have no ideas independent of experience ; whereas 
the facts of this volume demonstrate at every step * that we 
have ideas that come to us through no gate of the senses, 
through no experience, and through no "inheritance from 
preceding organisms." 

In regard to this last expression, it should be borne in mind 
that in the philosophy of both Mr. Spencer and Mr. Lewes, 
the innateness of ideas that are seemingly independent of ex- 
perience, is explained by the doctrine of inherited forms of 
thought, shaped by the accumulated experience of preceding 
organisms. Spiritualism accepts this as a partial, but not as 
an entire truth. 

Innumerable well-authenticated instances of prevision and 
clairvoyance have been cited, in which a knowledge trans- 
cending all that mere experience could supply is clearly 
manifested. Spiritualism opens to us a new world of observed 
phenomena, indicating supersensual powers ; phenomena 
that have been scientifically tested and proved by thousands 

* Phenomena of daily occurrence prove my position. Hardly was the ink 
dry on the above sentence, when I received a letter from a sister in Daven- 
port, Iowa, in whif-h she writes (Sept. 28th, 18;4), — "Jiishop Lee died on 
the 26th inst. Some two months ago he got up in the night, and took a 
bath. In returning to his room he stepped off a long flight of stairs, and 
landed at the foot with a tremendous crash, as he was very heavy. He 
was slightly bruised, and his right hand a little lamed. Mr. H. and my- 
self called on him two clay s after, and while telling us of the fall, the bish- 
op mentioned this coincidence. He had a letter in his hand, just received 
from his son Henry, living at Kansas City (several hundred miles distant). 
Henry wrote : k Are you well V For last night I had a dream that troubles 
me. I heard a crash, and standing up said to my wife, Did you hear that 
crash/ I dreamed that father had a fall and was dead. I got up and 
looked at my watch, and it was tico o'clock;! could not sleep again, so 
vivid was the dream.' The b shop remarked that the dream must have 
occurred at the very hour of the same night of the accident, for his own 
watch showed quarter past two, making it at the same moment, allow- 
ing for difference of time. The fall finally caused the bishop's death. 
His hand became intensely painful, and gangrene set in, which, after two 
weeks of suffering, terminated his life. ' ' Will Mr. Lewes please explain, 
by his experience-philosophy, how Henry Lee was made aware of the ac« 
cident to his father ? 



174 - THE SUPREME QUESTION. 

of competent witnesses. The sphere -of Causation must be 
enlarged to take in these new facts, or rather these old facts 
confirmed in the light of moderm science. 

So inevitable is this conclusion, so astounding is the pros- 
pect of the introduction of a body of phenomena which must 
revolutionize philosophy, and awaken many self-complacent 
scientists to a mortifying sense of their stubborn ignorance, 
that the Tyndalls, Huxley s, and Carpenters of our day can 
undervalue our facts only by denying them outright ; a 
mode of warfare which may serve our assailants for a time, 
but which must terminate in their utter discomfiture at some 
not distant day. Through Dr. Biichner of Germany, the 
Materialism claiming to be scientific tells us that " the phe- 
nomena of clairvoyance are now proved to be idle fancies ; M 
that " the perception of external objects without the aid of 
the physical senses is an impossibility," and that " all that 
we know comes through those senses.' ' 

Thus one of the leading representatives of the atheistic 
Materialism of our day bases his theory largely on the denial 
of facts which all Spiritualists know to be true, and which 
are already in the keeping of experimental science ! 

The limits, then, which are set up by that system of phi- 
losophy that has regard solely to experience and to associa- 
tions got through the physical senses, are found to be arbi- 
trary, and contrary to known facts. Spiritualism, by its in- 
ductions, leads us to realize that the visible universe is not 
all ; that the unseen must vastly exceed the seen. 

But does Spiritualism prove a God? 

Spiritualism is science, though science of a unique and 
transcendent character; and '* Science, " says Chevreul, 
"can neither prove nor disprove a God ; though the reason- 
ing by which it would prove a God is more in conformity 
with its own experimental methods than that by which it 
would disprove a God." 

Since God has in himself alone the reason and necessity of 
his own being— since he is the one absolute substance — he 
cannot be proved, for the proof of a thing must be in some- 



BELIEF IN GOD. 175 

thing higher than itself. "If the existence of God could be 
proved," says Jacobi, "then God would be derived from a 
ground before and above him." 

We must accept Him, then, as a postulate of the reason 
and of the heart ; of the reason, because of the intelligence 
in Nature and in the mind of man, and because the produc- 
ing Cause of the Universe must be higher than any of its 
manifestations ; of the heart, because of the love which 
mounts from the endeared finite objects on whom it is tender- 
ly fixed, to One in whom those objects have their reason of 
being and their only earnest of unending life. How many, 
after a great bereavement, can say, "Never was faith in 
Providence, never was the hope of another and a higher life 
so clear a certainty, so intense a reality as it has become since 
sorrow made it, to me, a spiritual necessity ! I want no argu- 
ment now !" 

A knowledge of immortality cannot be barren in its rela- 
tion to the question of the divine existence. " It is an error," 
says Fichte, "to say that it is doubtful whether or not there 
is a God. It is not doubtful, but the most certain of all cer- 
tainties, the one absolutely valid objective truth, that there is 
a moral order in the world.* * 

"A single aspiration of the soul," says Hemsterhuis, 
" after the future, the better, the perfect, is a demonstration 
more than geometric of Divinity." 

" To tell me that I do not and cannot know what substance 
is, that I never can know anything but phenomena, neither 
convinces me of illusion, nor drives the thought of ultimate 
eternal reality from my mind. My ignorance is precisely of 
that kind which asserts its own incomprehensible object. . . 
We cannot mark phenomena without thinking of substance. 
We cannot feel the world's heart beat in the ceaseless energy 
of living things without adoring an all-pervading Life."* 

"The unity which we seek behind the diversities of the 
visible world cannot be physical, because out of merely phys- 



*J. Allanson Picton, author of ''The Mystery of Matter"; London: 
Macmillan & Co., 1873. 



176 THE SUPREME QUESTION. 

ical unity the diversity of things could not have been evolved. 
There must have been a primary differentiation, not involved 
in the laws of matter as such. Simple, naked, materialistic 
Atheism— that is to say, the system which would resolve all 
into the laws of mere matter — is thus shown to be scientifically 
false; and this from data afforded by the sciences of matter 
alone, without referring to those of life and mind. The ulti- 
mate unity must be spiritual, in the sense, at least, of not 
being material."* 

"Before one can assert," says Christlieb, " that the world is 
without a God, one must first have become thoroughly con- 
versant with the entire universe. One must have searched 
through all the systems of suns and stars, as well as through 
the history of all ages ; he must have wandered through the 
whole realm of space and time, in order to be able to assert 
with sincerity, ' Nowhere has a trace of God been found!' 
He must be acquainted with every force in the whole uni- 
verse ; for should one escape him, that very one might be 
God. He must be able to count up with certainty all the 
causes of existence ; for were there one that he did not 
know, that one might be God. He must be in absolute pos- 
session of all the elements of truth, which form the whole 
body of our knowledge ; for else the one factor that he did 
not possess might be just the very truth that there is a God. 

" In short, to be able to affirm authoritatively that no God 
exists, a man must be omniscient and omnipresent, that is, he 
himself must be God ; and then, after all, there would be 
one. Atheism, much more than Theism, depends on faith, 
that is, on assumptions which cannot be proved." 

A scientific philosophy of ignorance thus proves that dog- 
matic atheism has no basis in logic or in science. 

By inductive science we are brought to the conclusion that 
the universe and the race of man had their beginning in time. 
The history of the universe is a history of the aggregation of 
matter. Geology tells us there was a time when man did not 



*From "The Scientific Bases of Faith,' ' by J. J. Murphy. London: 
1873. 



MATEBIALISM EXPLAINS NOTHING. 177 

exist on our planet. How did he get there ? Materialism re- 
plies that he was evolved from the forces of matter. Spirit- 
ualism says, then those forces must be spiritual, for mind 
must come from mind ; to which Materialism retorts, that a 
God uncaused, and existing from eternity, is fully as incom- 
prehensible as Matter uncaused, and existing from eternity. 
And to this the conclusive reply is, But you make your Mat- 
ter a God, if you make it the generator of mind and con- 
sciousness. 

If we use the a priori argument, and say that " Whatever 
begins to be, must have a cause, 5 ' we are met by the reply, 
"No, this notion of causation is a mere generalization from 
contingent experiences, and not a necessary truth. The laws 
of Nature cannot account for their origin.' ' 

But the idea of cause is irrepressible, and no logic can bar 
it out. " It cannot be abolished/ ' says Herbert Spencer, "ex- 
cept by the abolition of thought itself." 

Materialism would still be confronted by the same prob- 
lem, even if it were to discover a law that would explain the 
universe. For the law itself and the law-maker would have 
to be explained in their turn. Natural evolution through pe- 
riods of time not to be reckoned requires an intelligent Force 
to account for it, just as much as would an instantaneous act 
of creation. Admit the facts of Spiritualism, and the Dar- 
winian scheme affords no ground for atheistic conclusions. 
The argument from design, based on analogies with the 
works of human artificers, is not needed. We must learn to 
look for Divine perfection, not in the particular and frag- 
mentary things of time, but in the universals of eternity ; 
since here, conditioned as we are, there can be, in the very 
nature of things, no light without darkness, no good without 
evil, no truth without error, no progress without imperfection. 
The wise man says, " Trust and wait." The man not wise 
says, "Since 1 can see no sign that God has acted as I would 
have acted in his place, there can be no God V* 

We have seen that spiritual and all other facts of science 
are tending to resolve our conception of matter into that of 
12 



178 THE SUPREME QUESTION. 

force. Spiritualism proclaims through its phenomena that 
this force must be spiritual in its origin. Only by the analogy 
of our own mental activity can we arrive at a conception of 
causative force. Even Professor Huxley admits thus much ; 
he says : "Undoubtedly, active force is inconceivable, except 
as a state of consciousness, . . . except as something com- 
parable to volition." 

The domain of science is bounded by the region of second 
causes. ; and therefore the idea of a first cause, of God, can 
never -be scientifically excluded or repressed. "If," says Pro- 
fessor Le Conte, " in tracing the chain of causes upward, we 
stop at any cause, or force, or principle, that force or princi- 
ple becomes for us God, since it is an efficient agent control- 
ling the universe." 

The claim that Spiritualism is atheistic, has no authority 
either in philosophy or science. " In order to be something 
more than mere Skepticism, and to offer a consistent theory of 
the universe, atheism must abandon its negative form, for a 
positive ; and it cannot do this except by merging itself in the 
materialistic theory." Thus it cannot logically claim Spiritu- 
alism as its ally, since in becoming positive, it repudiates the 
spiritual fact. 

We assume that something or other unmade and without 
beginning has existed from all eternity ; for whatever exists 
must have its sufficient cause either in itself or out of itself, 
since nothing can come from nothing, whatever Skepticism 
may say to the contrary. 

This self-existent something, is it unorganized matter, or is 
it undirected force, or is it a combination of the two ? 

It is impossible to conceive of mind as issuing from unor- 
ganized matter ; and organized matter presupposes an Organ- 
izer. Explanation of the higher by the lower, of thought by 
matter, must therefore be rejected as contrary to reason ; and 
equally to be rejected is the explanation by undirected, unin- 
telligent force. 

But what of matter and force combined ? Dr. Buchner has 
written a book to teach us that there is no matter without 



MATERIALISM ON CAUSATION. 179 

force, and no force without matter, and that this unity in du- 
ality can do anything. He postulates them to account for mo- 
tion, and then he asks us to concede that matter, force, and 
motion are adequate to the production of mind and all the 
other phenomena of life. But if matter needs force in order 
to be moved, and if force needs matter in order to produce 
motion, it is difficult to see how in their combination they can 
produce the efficiency required, and emerge into an intelligent 
cause. 

Nevertheless, if they do this, if matter and force, eternally 
inseparable and self- existent, are sufficient in their union to 
produce mind, then they are an intelligent cause—then they 
are God ; and thus the materialistic theory must be rejected 
as failing to meet the demands of a scientific analysis. 

When it aspires to reach the last analysis of things, and to 
throw light on Causation, Materialism has no advantage over 
the metaphysician whom it would deride. We have seen that 
should the hypothesis of an evolution of high organisms from 
inferior types be proved, it would bring us no nearer to a so- 
lution of the infinite problem of the origin of things. Nay, 
should Science do what Strauss wildly supposes it may yet 
do, achieve the creation of a man, it would still be utterly im- 
potent to explain the origin and nature of mind and matter, 
and to answer the questions, Why and Whence ? 

The Materialism on which positive atheism would rely, tells 
us that the universe is the product of two factors, the atom 
and motion ; that these two factors explain all ; that as for 
the laws of the universe, they are simply the necessary re- 
lations between forces, the expression of the necessity of 
things ; that hence it may be inferred how anti-scientific it is 
to regard the government of the universe as regulated in ad- 
vance by a spirit reconciling itself to immutable laws ; be- 
cause if the divine will governs, the laws are superfluous ; 
but if the laws govern, they exclude all foreign intervention. 
<< Science, ,, says Comte, "would now re-conduct God to the 
frontiers, thanking him for his provisional services. ,, 

But instead of inferring, as Materialism does, that these 



180 THE SUPREME QUESTION. 

immutable laws suffice to render an account of themselves, 
Spiritualism declares that the order which they reveal, sup- 
poses a Supreme Ordainer.* 

Here are two contrary interpretations of the same fact. 
Which is the more reasonable one ? No experimental verifi- 
cation can throw light on the problem ; and what it is the 
business of the Materialism, on which atheism relies, to de- 
monstrate, is the absolute incompatibility between the idea 
of an Intelligent Cause and the order of the world which 
maintains itself by the fixity of its laws. This demonstration 
cannot be had. 

Of what use, asks the atheist, is an idle God, of whom it 
maybe said, as of a constitutional king, "He reigns, but it 
is the laws which govern" ? I can best answer the question 
in the words of the Rev. John Caird, in his Sermon on Spirit- 
ual Influence. He says: "A human mechanist may leave 
the machine he has constructed to work without his further 
personal superintendence, because when he leaves it God's 
laws take it up, and by their aid the materials of which the 
machine is made retain their solidity, the steel continues 
elastic, the vapor keeps its expansive power. But when God 
has constructed His machine of the universe, He cannot so 
learn it, or any the minutest part of it, in its immensity and 
intricacy of movement, to itself; for, if He retire, there is no 
second God to take care of this machine. Not from a single 
atom of matter can He who made it for a moment withdraw 
His superintendence and support. Each successive moment, 
all over the world, the act of creation must be repeated." 

Upon what positive, demonstrable facts can Materialism 
maintain, at the same time with the negation of God, the 
thesis of the eternity of matter and its power of producing 
and transforming all things ?f 

If the universe had a commencement, this commencement, 

*For this and several of the succeeding arguments T am indebted to 
"Le Materialismeet la Science, by EmileCaro 11 — an excellent little treat- 
ise which merits a translation into English. In ic the best thought of 
the philosophical Spiritualism of France seems to be summed up. 

+ For the substance of this argument see Emile Caro's "Le Materialism* 
etlabcience." 



MATERIALISM TESTED. 181 

by the very conditions of the case, had an Intelligent Cause ; 
for the laws of Nature cannot render an account of their 
origin. 

True, one can suppose that the order of material phenomena 
and their laws never commenced, and it is this supposition 
which constitutes dogmatic Materialism. But what experi- 
mental verification can it claim ? None whatever ! And 
Theism replies to it by another hypothesis which neutralizes 
it : Theism supposes that the universe had a commencement, 
which amounts to saying that the actual order of things has 
not always existed. 

How can the Materialists prove the contrary ? 

By the examination of the laws of Nature ? But these laws 
can render only an account of that which is, not an account 
of what, by hypothesis, has preceded that which is. They may 
explain the actual form of the universe, not the mode of its 
formation, if we suppose that there was formation. 

"It will not avail to reply, that if there is a question of origin 
to posit, all experimental explication is powerless to resolve 
it : you must admit that no experience can demonstrate that 
there is not a question of origin to posit. 

"Atheistic Materialism would explain all things by the 
properties of matter, and in this it goes beyond experience 
and becomes a system. It indulges in mere speculation. 
Positive science has no other data than those afforded in the 
world which exists : experience can give us only that which 
is ; no one can know experimentally that which was before 
that which is." 

"Nay," replies Materialism, "our facts may not suffice to 
resolve these questions positively, but they are more than 
sufficient to resolve them negatively." 

" But is it not to resolve these questions very positively to 
resolve them thus? If you maintain that there is not even 
place to posit the question of a God, cfo you not affirm that the 
world exists by itself, and is not this a solution very positive? 

" Until Materialism can get out of this vicious circle which 
Logic traces around its fundamental conception, it cannot 



182 BELIEF IN" GOD. 

make one step in advance towards affording to atheism any 
scientific comfort or support. It may reason, after its fashion, 
upon the impossibility of conceiving a commencement to the 
system of things ; to the existence of matter and its proper- 
ties ; but it will prove nothing experimentally; and, according 
to its own principles, that is the only way of proving any- 
thing. It will speculate, but that is very humiliating for the 
disdainers of all speculation ; it will venture on the meta- 
physical, but that is the last disgrace to these adversaries of 
all metaphysics.' ■ 

So in order to arrive at a dogmatic atheism, one must not 
only discard science and fall back on a priori assumptions, 
but must set aside those facts of Spiritualism which prove the 
priority of spirit over matter. If an atheism based on Mate- 
rialism has no scientific validity, the atheism that would seek 
support in Spiritualism must be sanguine indeed. 

" The doctrine of final causes," it is objected, " implies con- 
trivance and therefore a limitation of the divine energy." 
When it is admitted that God may be ^/-limited in his mani- 
festations on this ultimate material plane, atheism puts forth 
its most determined effort against the marks of design in the 
universe. 

It tells us that Nature is blind, immoral, irrational ; that she . 
often gives birth to productions the most absurd, if we judge 
them as controllable by a rational will ; that she allows loath- 
some parasites to torture the nobler organisms ; that we often 
find her powerless to vanquish the least obstacle in her way, 
and reaching the contrary of that which she ought logically 
to reach. How can a cause which acts in a manner so me- 
chanical and blind, so contrary to benevolence and paternal 
goodness, be a Will, a Reason, an Omnipotent Being? 

1 'As for the much- vaunted design in Nature," says Profes- 
sor Haeckel, "it is a reality only for those whose views of 
animal and vegetable life are to the last degree superficial." 

All this simply amounts to saying that in an infinite num- 
ber of cases we cannot comprehend the ends which Nature 
pursues : a conclusion that is not to be disputed. But what 



PROOFS OF DESIGN. 183 

experimental proof can be given that these ends which evade 
our comprehension do not exist ? 

" We admit that they may be above and beyond our intelli- 
gence ; but this only tells against human reason, not against 
divine science, of which our reason surely is not to be taken 
as the exact measure. The inexplicable abounds in the uni- 
verse ; it is everywhere, under our eyes, within reach of our 
hands ; we meet it at every step. If the atheist would have 
God exist solely on condition of acting just as a man would 
act in God's place, we are not of those who would conceive of 
God thus." 

We have no disposition to press the argument from design ; 
to bring down any of the divine manifestations in Nature to 
an analogy with the handiwork of a human mechanician. 
But it should be borne in mind that negative facts pertaining 
to this question of final causes do not betray the absence of 
God, since, experimentally considered, they merely signify 
our own ignorance, the limits of our own intelligence. 

" A positive fact has a wholly different value. It reveals 
to us an Intelligent Cause by a natural analogy which is a law 
of our reason. A fact like organism places finality beyond a 
doubt. Now if finality exists in only one case, induction 
would lead us to conclude that it exists elsewhere, even where 
we are incapable of detecting it." 

To say that matter can account for these more obvious phe- 
nomena of finality, that the gases of phosphorus can culmi- 
nate in consciousness, and that the vibrations of molecules 
can produce thought, is, as we have seen, merely to spiritual- 
ize and deify matter and not at all to dispense with spirit or 
with deity. 

The theistic argument from design is not needed by Spirit- 
ualism ; but it should be observed that the proposition which 
would exclude finality from our consideration has no virtue 
except by condition of its being absolute. This it is not, and 
this it can never be. It is relative to certain parts of the world, 
and it ceases to be applicable to other parts. " But if there is 
anywhere, in one single point of the world, sensible traces of 



184 BELIEF IN GOD. 

finality, all leads us to believe that there are ends elsewhere, 
even in those places where they do not reveal themselves to 
our limited means of investigation." 

In opposition to the Divine Personality, Spiritualism has no 
word of authority to offer. 

Self-consciousness must be an attribute of that two-fold ex- 
istence of God, at once supra-mundane and intra mundane, 
which combines the theistic and the pantheistic conception of 
his nature. How can personality proceed from an impersonal 
principle? Can God create forms of existence which tran- 
scend his own ? 

To Strauss's objection, that the more perfect the personality 
the greater the limitation, Froshammer replies : " The essen- 
tial elements of personality are existence, consciousness of 
that existence, and control over it. Distinction from and 
therefore limitation by others is not an essential element of 
personality, but an accidental sign of relative personality. 
An absolute personality cannot therefore be said to be im- 
possible, for it may find in itself the distinctions necessary for 
personal consciousness. It may be said that God is super-per- 
sonal. He is the supreme, the only real personality, since he 
is the only absolute, self-existent being. If Strauss's notion 
were true, then a man, brought up in ignorance of the exist- 
ence of any being but himself, would not be a person !" 

Atheism is a charge often too hastily brought against rev- 
erent minds, discontented with all prevailing forms of Theism, 
and reaching out for wider truths. Let such minds not be 
confounded with those which would preach atheism dogmat- 
ically, as if it had any ground of science on which to rest. 

We all of us, I suppose, have our atheistic moods ; moods 
when we venture on the thought that a beneficent, intelligent 
AVill ought to manage the things of this world better, and 
help us and our friends to have a better time of it. With 
some this mood is persistent, as with Schopenhauer, Hart- 
maun, Yogt, and Strauss, who cry out at the bad things of 
life like peevish, fractious children bewailing their stomach- 
aches and short allowance of taffy. 



VEILS AND CLOUDS. 185 

"If God," says Hartmann, " previous to the creation had 
been aware what he was doing, creation would have been an 
inexpiable crime. ,, 

" The cosmos is something which had much better not have 
existed," says Schopenhauer. 

"Like children crying in the night, 
Like children crying for a light, 
And with no language hut a cry, »' 

are these philosophers in their fretful whinings. They tell us 
of the earthquakes, tornados, volcanic eruptions, and mean- 
ingless plagues that afflict humanity— of the malformations, 
excrescences, venomous reptiles and monstrous diseases ; and 
they ask, Are all these things divine gifts ? 

They are truly the clouds and darkness which are about 
his throne ; the mysteries by which he is veiled from the in- 
quisitive understanding. But they are mere temporary ne- 
gations or obscurities, and do not counterbalance the positive 
proofs of his eternal existence which we find in the universe, 
in Spiritualism, and in the soul of man. 

When we hear Spiritualists joining in these outcries against 
God, the question occurs : "If, as you say, death is the path- 
way to a higher life, how do you know that all these calami- 
ties which destroy or abbreviate human life or health, and 
which you affect to deplore so profoundly, and to use as an 
argument against divine beneficence, are not meant in mercy 
and in love ? If to die is gain, as Spiritualism teaches, why 
find fault with the natural causes that seem to accelerate our 
departure?" 

No anthropomorphic argument from design is needed when 
the Pantheistic conception is made supplementary to the 
Theistic. " Analogies," says Picton, " which would turn our 
unspeakable worship of the Infinite One into the familiar ad- 
miration felt for the inventor of a new machine, are increas- 
ingly felt, in these times, to be two-edged weapons, with 
which Faith does ill to play. For only by the recognition 
that adaptation of means to an end, in order of time, belongs 
to temporal and fragmentary life— not to eternal Being— do 



186 BELIEF Itf GOD. 

we preserve the attitude of soul which is unassailable by the 
bewilderments of false analogy or materialistic despair.' ' 

Thus we feel that we are surrounded, both on the material 
plane of being and on the spiritual, "by an omnipresent, im- 
mutable Power, for whom nothing is too great, nothing too 
insignificant, but which equally regulates the orbits of worlds 
and the position of an atom, and in whose Divine order there 
is nothing common or unclean, but its fitting place is found 
for the lowest as well as the highest in the palpitating life of 
the Universe."* 

The great teacher of scientific induction, Bacon, says : " So 
far are physical causes from drawing men off from God and 
Providence that, on the contrary, the philosophers employed 
in discovering them can find no rest but by flying to God or 
Providence at last." 

"At last." There is a significance in these words; for 
Bacon does not deny that science and philosophy, failing in 
extent and comprehensiveness, may incline to atheism. Our 
modern scientists leave out of their reckoning those facts of 
Spiritualism which Bacon knew, and which guarded him from 
limiting his faith in Deity to deductions from second causes. 

The science that rejects the alliance which Modern Spirit- 
ualism offers is superficial and incomplete, and must continue 
to grope in darkness whenever it would approach those ques- 
tions which relate to a future life and the divine spirituality 
of the cosmic principle. A reconsideration of dogmas con- 
cerning the Divine Existence may seem a rash attempt, but 
their relations to the phenomena of this volume are a ques- 
tion full of interest. 

"The heart of man," says Picton, "recoils and always 
will recoil from that ghastly sense of universal death, which 
comes with the momentary imagination of a Godless world ; 
but the mind of man is equally intolerant of obviously un- 
tenable propositions, maintained on grounds of supposed ex- 
pediency.' ' 

* Author of ' ■ Supernatural Religion. ' ■ London : Longmans, 1874. 



THE DIVINE NATITKE. 187 

11 There is no resting-place for a religion of the reason," 
says Mansell, "but Pantheism or Atheism." 

And yet for a religion that is not of the reason who can feel 
respect, and what certainty of enduring influence can be 
hoped for it ? 

As atheism must be reversed, and lost in that higher Pan- 
theism which regards the whole universe as instinct with di- 
vine life and intelligence, so must this higher Pantheism be 
encircled by the still higher Theism which, while it regards 
God as in Nature, regards him at the same time as beyond Na- 
ture—at once the God in whom we live and move and have 
our being, the God of the material and spiritual universe, 
and the God transcendent, absolute, and infinite, the incom- 
prehensible Unity. 

How shall we approach the august problem ? How recon- 
cile these seeming contradictions ? 



CHAPTER XV. 

In the facts and analogies of Spiritualism no congruity has 
thus far been found with that form of Pantheism which de- 
nies personality to God and a conscious immortality to man. 

In the lower Pantheistic view, God is the universe itself ; 
beyond and outside the world he does not exist, but only in 
the world ; he is the soul, the reason, and the spirit of the 
world, and all Nature is his body ; he is everything, and be- 
side him there is nothing. 

But there is a higher, an idealistic Pantheism, which makes 
the universe all spirit, and regards matter as a mere thought, 
or congeries of thoughts, so adapted to our sensations as to 
make us feel it real, at the same time that it is no independ- 
ent entity in itself. Of these two orders of Pantheism, the 
one is without a real God, and the other without a real world. 

In the same mind we often see the Theistic and the Panthe- 



188 THREE IK ONE. 

» 

istic idea asserting itself almost simultaneously. Christianity 
is nearly as full of Pantheism as it is of Theism ; for if it re- 
cognizes God as our heavenly Father, it regards him also as 
the one Life in which we live and move and have our being. 
Devotion cannot go far without running into language capa- 
ble only of a Pantheistic construction. 

Through our finite and fallible faculties we may not hope to 
comprehend God ; yet Science may lead us to ever higher and 
more rational conceptions of his possible nature. The Coper- 
nican system has enlarged those conceptions, and Modern 
Spiritualism may enlarge them still more. It may help us to 
find truth both in the Theistic and the Pantheistic idea, and 
thus to reconcile what may at first seem too antagonistic to 
be entertained together. 

In his "Principles of Mental Physiology," even Dr. Wm. 
B. Carpenter would seem to aim at such a reconciliation. He 
says : " Although if God be outside the Physical Universe, 
those extended ideas of its vastness which modern Science 
opens to us, remove Him further and further from us, yet if 
He be embodied in it, every such extension enlarges our notion 
of His being." What good Pantheist could ask more than is 
admitted in the words embodied in it? They contain the very 
pith of Pantheism. 

Spiritualism proves that the visible mortal body is not the 
whole of man, and hence lifts us to the conception that the 
Universe, as defined by Science, is not the whole of God. 
Thus Pantheism, pure and simple, is lacking in that import- 
ant part of the idea of God which recognizes his transcend- 
ent infinity, his independent spirituality, and his supreme 
personality ; while Theism fails to recognize his immanence in 
Nature, his universality, and his multiplicity in unity. God 
impersonal and circumscribed by the world, and God personal 
and unlimited by the world, are but parts of the ineffable 
truth that combines the two conceptions. 

" The universe," says John Scotus Erigena (810-877), "has 
no existence independent of God's existence ; it is therefore 
God, but not the whole of God. He is more than the universe, 



THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 189 

yet the Divine Nature is truly and properly in all things." 
We have seen (Chap. XII.) that these were also the views of 
Giordano Bruno. 

''All Nature," says William Law, (1686-1761,) "is itself a 
birth from God. Creation out of nothing is a fiction of mod- 
ern theology. So far is Nature from being out of nothing, 
that it is the manifestation of that in God which before was 
not manifest, and as Nature is the manifestation of God, so 
are all creatures the manifestation of the powers of Nature. 
. . . Properly and strictly speaking, nothing can begin to 
be. The beginning of everything is nothing more than its 
beginning to be in a new state." 

" As the spokes in the nave," says an Oriental Spiritualist, 
"so all worlds and souls are fastened in the One Soul." 

A writer* who accepts Pantheism in its spiritual sense, at- 
tempts to show that faith in the Divine personality is not 
necessarily lost in the Pantheistic idea. He says: "God is 
neither personal nor impersonal : lie is both. He is personal 
because our highest conception of being is a person. Only to 
the personal can we ascribe reason, consciousness, freedom of 
action. And here our idea of God emerges as that of the 
highest personality. But He is more than personal, and in 
this sense impersonal (super-personal?). Spiritual existence 
is spiritual, individual personality. . . . He who has 
grasped this great truth of the impersonality of God, and yet 
recognizes the Divine personality, has risen to that transcend- 
ental region where truth has its origin, and yet he has a foot- 
ing on the terrene where truth is known only under the lim- 
itations of things finite, conceived through the medium of hu- 
man analogies and spoken of in the language of the sen- 
suous." 

"We may deny him will, and yet he wills. He is not in- 
telligent ; he is intelligence itself, ne has no designs, for the 
idea of infinite wisdom excludes that of design ; and yet to us 
He is the vast Designer. He is not hoary with time, for eter- 
nity is ever young, and yet He is the Ancient of Days." 

* The Rev. John Hunt. See his • ' Essay on Pantheism ; London : 1866. " ■ 



190 THEEE IN ONE. 

The secret things of God are past rinding out, because, re- 
vise our conceptions of Him as we may, there still remains in 
his nature the infinite and the unfathomable. Without ir- 
reverence and with perfect humility, therefore, may the 
speculative faculty exercise itself in attaining to a conception 
in which reason and the heart's religious aspirations may 
draw nearer to a union. 

Nature is an organism through which the Divine life is for- 
ever streaming, and imparting itself to all organic forms ; but 
this organism is only a temporary objective manifestation of 
God, and other universes may have preceded the present. 
Nature is subject to change, to the limitations of space and 
time, and to consequent imperfection. For in his manifesta- 
tions on this material plane of being, God is limited by his 
own " self-denying energy " just as a spirit is limited by di- 
vine laws on coming within the earth-sphere. Therefore the 
divine life, with which the whole universe throbs, is, in a 
manner, automatic in its developments ; and Nature, though 
full of signs of intelligence, seems often to be acting blindly, 
and as if good and evil were indifferent to her ; an appear- 
ance which results from the self-imposed limitations by which 
the divine action is subjected to unyielding law in expressing 
itself through matter in these its ultimate evolutions. Thus 
God in Nature becomes Relative to God the Absolute, as ex- 
isting in the highest of his three states. 

"To ask," says the late J. W. Jackson,* " why God did 
not make a perfect creation is equivalent to asking that God 
in ultimates, on the plane of time and space, where he is to 
our perceptions necessarily conditioned by the sequences of 
duration and the limitations of extension, shall be identical 
with God in first principles as the eternal and infinite." 

To attempt to authenticate this conception of God by any 
reference to human analogies may seem contrary to that ten- 
dency of science which would discredit as presumptuous all 
such comparisons. But it is not to limit Omnipotence by any 

* An experienced mesmerist and phvsiologist, and an eloquent writer. 
Shortly before his deai h in London in 1872, he became fully convinced of 
the phenomena of Spiritualism. 



DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 191 

human standard, to confess to that amount of anthropomor- 
phism which is inseparable from the conviction that man, in 
a certain sense, bears the image of God. " Man/' says St. 
Martin, "is a type which must have a prototype, and that 
prototype is God. The body of man has a necessary relation 
to everything visible, and his spirit is the type of every- 
thing invisible.' ' One may believe this without irreverence, 
just as he may believe that the same law which moves the 
universe may move an atom. 

In man we find unmistakably the phenomenon of double 
consciousness. Even Professor Huxley, in his Address, Aug. 
25th, 1874, before the British Association at Belfast, describes 
a case in which two separate lives, a normal and abnormal 
one, seemed to be lived at intervals by the same individual ; 
and Dr. Carpenter, though his experience does not take in 
many important facts now known to be true, admits the sepa- 
rate states of consciousness manifested so wonderfully in 
Somnambulism.* He instances, in the case of Mozart, the 
proofs of the automatic action of the brain, as shown in the 
composition of the overture to the opera of " Don Giovanni." 
Mozart was probably a musical medium. His aptitude is in- 
explicable except on the spiritual hypothesis. He himself 
has said of his musical ideas, " Whence and how they come, I 
know not, nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me 
I retain in my memory." 

We have seen that man is described by the principal seers 
as a trinity of earth-body, spirit-body, and spiritual principle. 
The facts of somnambulism all tend to confirm this view, and 



* I once kept a sensitive patient in a state of mesmeric or induced som- 
nambulism for a whole fortnight, during which she did not once return 
to the state of normal consciousness. When she was at last restored to it, 
the occurrences of the fortnight were an entire clank to her. Not the 
least consciousness did she have of the interval that had elapsed. She 
supposed she might bave been asleep an hour. The ground was heavily 
covered with snow, when she passed into tbe abnormal state; when sbe 
awoke there was no snow to be seen. "What w as a rose-bud on one of the 
bushes in her room bad become a full-blown rose. Tbese apparently sud- 
den transformations agitated her so, tbat, by a strenuous effort of will, I 
had to throw her bsck into tbe somnambulic state in order to prepare her 
mind gradually for the cbanges she wasdestined to see wben awake. This 
somnambulic state was always a higher, brighter, more rational state 
than her ordinary one: and when somnambulic sbe would speak with a 
sort of pity of some of the errors and misconceptions by which she was in- 
fluenced when awake. 



192 THREE IN ONE. 

exhibit man in three states or degrees of consciousness : first, 
in his normal waking state ; secondly, in the state represented 
in lucid somnambulism,, where the mind is active and elevated, 
and the faculty of sight is vividlv exercised without the aid 
of the physical eyes ; thirdly, in the high state of ecstasy 
when the subject seems to be surrounded by spiritual realities 
and is anxious to quit the body. These three states of con- 
sciousness are often entirely distinct, as experienced mesmer- 
izers are well aware. I have frequently witnessed the two 
higher states, and satisfied myself of their reality. 

Swedenborg also teaches that there are three natures, or de- 
grees of life, in man : the natural, the spiritual, and the celes- 
tial ; and that in the celestial, men do not reason about the 
truth ; they see it, because it is a possession. 

A corresponding truth may be at the basis of the conception 
of God as a trinity in his manifestations or modes of exist- 
ence ; a conception of which Schelling says : ' ' The philosophy 
of mythology proves that a Trinity of Divine Potentialities 
is the root from which have grown the religious ideas of all 
nations of any importance that are known to us." 

We may conceive of the Supreme Being, first, as God in 
first principles, the Absolute, the incomprehensible Unity, 
supremely personal and conscious, because possessing all con- 
ceivable perfections in their potency and all life in its essence ; 
the impulse of whose developments and self-limitations is an 
act of will ; secondly, as God in his relations to the universe 
of derived spirit and mind, and self-limited according to the 
measure of those relations ; thirdly, as God in ultimates, im- 
manent or intra-mundane, and still further limited by his 
descent into the environments of matter and his identification 
with the soul of universal Nature. 

Thus God, in his highest hypostasis, is the Absolute One, 
having within himself, in idea and in essence, all the poten- 
cies of being, whether ultimating in what we call spirit or in 
matter ; in his intermediate hypostasis he becomes limited by 
relations to the world of derived spirit and mind; in his third 
or lowest hypostasis he is the soul, the life, and the essence of 



NATURALISM AND THEISM. 193 

physical Nature with all her material limitations, her seeming 
inconsistencies, immoralities and cruelties ; all which, how- 
ever, are in harmony with his beneficent purposes, one of 
which is that of educating intelligent beings to comprehend 
and enjoy what he has in store for them ; in harmony, too, 
with his own absolute independence of all evil, that being 
simply privation, negation and imperfection, without which, 
however, man could not be a progressive being. 

In his " True Christian Religion " (33 and 47, V I.), Sweden- 
borg says : "The common idea is, that, because what is 
finite does not comprehend what is infinite, finite things can- 
not be receptacles of the infinite. But, from those things 
which are said in my works concerning the creation, it is evi- 
dent that God first made his infinity finite by substances emitted 
from himself, from which exists his proximate encompassing 
sphere, which makes the sun of the spiritual world ; and that 
afterwards, by means of that sun, he perfected other encom- 
passing spheres, even to the last, which consists of things 
quiescent ; and that thus, by means of degrees, he made the 
world finite more and more, . . . The universe is a work 
continent of divine love, divine wisdom and uses, and thus 
altogether a work coherent from firsts to lasts." 

If it be said that a tri-unity of being is inconceivable in 
God, I might reply that it is equally inconceivable in man, 
and yet facts and phenomena make us realize that it exists. 

" The three fundamental colors, red, yellow and blue," says 
Christlieb, "dissolve into the unity of white light— so that 
this may well be called a trinity in unity. But they coalesce 
in such a manner that each of the three rays preserves its 
distinctive attribute. Red is the caloric, yellow the luminous, 
blue the chemical (actinic) ray. God is light ; and, verily, 
natural light, the first of his creatures, bears the immediate 
impress of his triune being." 

Hegel calls the idea of the trinity " the pivot of the world." 
According to Schelling, God is the perfect spirit in three forms, 
and the true idea of God is a union of naturalism and theism. 

"Naturalism," he says, "seeks to conceive of God as 
13 



194 THREE IN O^E. 

ground of the world (immanent), while Theism would view 
him as the world's cause (transcendent) ; the true course is to 
unite both determinations. God is at the same time ground 
and cause. 

" It no way contradicts the conception of God to affirm that, 
so far as he reveals himself, he develops himself from himself, 
advancing from the imperfect to the perfect; the imperfect is 
in fact the perfect itself, only in a state of becoming. It is 
necessary that this becoming should be by stages, in order 
that the fullness of the perfect may appear on all sides. If 
there were no obscure ground, no nature, no negative prin- 
ciple in God, we could not speak of a consciousness of God. 

"So long as the God of modern theism remains the simple 
essence which ought to be purely essential, but which in fact 
is without essence, so long as an actual twofoldness is not 
recognized in God, and a limiting and denying energy (a na- 
ture, a negative principle) is not placed in opposition to the 
extending and affirming energy in God, so long will science 
be entitled to make its denial of a personal God. It is univer- 
sally and essentially impossible to conceive of a being with 
consciousness, which has not been brought into limit by 
some denying energy within himself— as universally and es- 
sentially impossible as to conceive of a circle without a centre. 

11 The fullness of God's being cannot be contained in an ab- 
stract unity, and yet his absolute personality must have unity 
for its fundamental attribute. The conception of the triune 
God furnishes us with the sole bridge that can fill up the breach 
between God and the world." 

11 If we separate," says Vera, " substantially and absolute- 
ly, God and the world, we do not only impair and curtail the 
being of the world but that of God also. We curtail the being 
of the world by separating it from its principle ; we curtail 
the being of God by admitting that the substance of the world 
is independent of God, and consequently by admitting two 
absolute substances. And the creatio ex nihilo could not fill 
up the gap, as the creatio ex nihilo could not affect the prin- 
ciples and essences of things which, under any supposition, 
must be coeternal with God. 



GEOUND AND CAUSE. 195 

" God is all things in their idea, and as a whole, and in the 
unity of their existence ; but he is not all things individually, 
or in their particular and fragmentary existence. He is not 
what the thing is, of which he is the principle. God is the 
thought, the idea, the essence of the universe. The thought 
of God, for the very reason that it is the essence, is the Provi- 
dence of each being particularly. The Providence of the 
plant is its idea, according to which it is born, it ^ows and 
dies. And so it is with everything." 

The conception of God as brought into relativity by an ob- 
jective universe, but at the same time existing in higher and 
discrete degrees of being, in the highest of which he is the ab- 
solute and perfect God, is, as I have attempted to show, not 
inconsistent with what we know of the nature of man. It 
would be no irrational speculation to hold that the divine rela- 
tivity to the finite may, in its expression, vary with the char- 
acter of the different earths or planets fitted for intelligent 
beings while passing through the discipline of a material en- 
vironment ; that every planet with its climates and products 
is adapted to the state of its rational inhabitants ; that what 
we regard as the defects or evils of Nature as manifesting her- 
self through our planet, are merely the emblematic reflection 
of our own defects or evils ; and so that, as the race of man 
improves, the earth itself will improve. 

The idea that God, as the life and intelligence of Nature, is 
self-circumscribed and reduced to relativity by his own " self- 
denying energy," leads to a view of the cosmos, in which all 
the objections of atheism are swallowed up. God is seen no 
longer as the provisional or constitutional monarch whose 
laws can rule the universe without his aid, his functions be- 
ing merely honorary. At once ground and cause, his life be- 
comes the fountain of our life, and all Nature is transfigured 
with divine possibilities ; man, derived and dependent as he 
is, becomes a free co-worker with God ; evil becomes a merely 
negative thing, having no real being or life ; all imperfec- 
tions become transitional, a necessary phase of good in the 
making ; Humanity, with all its selfishness, its meanness, and 



196 THKEE IN ONE. 

its arrogance, becomes ennobled when looked at from the 
side of its possibilities rather than its limitations and perver- 
sions, and takes on more and more the Divine Expression. 
We are helped to judge of mankind by its martyrs and saints 
rather than by its tyrants and criminals. We feel that God is 
not aloof from us but working in us, the very soul of this di- 
vine Nature by which we live, and without the light and life 
of whose sun we could not exist a moment. 

Nor let it be said that God's circumscription as the life and 
soul of Nature removes God in the Highest from sympathy 
with our weaknesses and our wants. To sympathize with 
us fully, to be Love and Providence, as well as Law and Wis- 
dom, he must be implicitly the Nature he subordinates, be- 
sides a Power independent of it. It may be objected : God 
cannot be perfection, if, in his self -limitation as the sub- 
stance of Nature, he is also imperfection ; but to this it may 
be replied that the experience of imperfection may be essen- 
tial to the very fullness of the Divine perfection ; that in or- 
der to be the perfect he must exist in a self-subordinated 
state as the imperfect also. 

Kemember, moreover, that if God is a trinity, he is in that 
but the prototype of man, who, in each grade of his nature, 
is related to God in a corresponding hypostasis. The tri- 
unity of earth -body, spirit-body, and spiritual principle, is 
paralleled in the three-fold nature of God ; and man, in each 
degree, and in all together, has God as ' his Providence, his 
spiritual Ideal, and his Infinite Father. The God of his 
childhood's trust and wonder is restored to him ; the God of 
his prayers is an ever-present listener ; if God is unyielding 
law, he is also maternal tenderness and love ; if he is the life 
of our life, he is also the moral order of the universe ; and 
faith is thus unchecked by science, while reason is reconciled 
with faith. 

To many profound and to many superficial thinkers, all 
theistic speculation is repulsive. They would say with 
Hooker: "Our safest eloquence concerning Him is our si- 
lence"; or with Sir William Hamilton, "The highest react 



PANTHEISTIC THEISM. 197 

of human science is the scientific recognition of human igno- 
rance.'* But the heart and the intellect continue, neverthe- 
less, to cry, " Oh ! that I knew where I might find Him I" 

As on the nature of man new and important light contin- 
ues to be shed by the facts of somnambulism, thought read- 
ing, and Modern Spiritualism, may we not hope that human 
thought will be helped to conceptions of Deity less at vari- 
ance with science, and that the atheistic objections which 
now oppress many sincere minds and devout hearts, will be 
gradually but surely lost in the dawning light? 

The elements of this attempt to combine the Theistic with 
the Pantheistic conception may be found in all the great phi- 
losophies and theologies, not omitting those of Oriental 
origin. Plato distinctly teaches that the Soul of the World 
is a third subordinate nature, compounded of intelligence 
and matter. 

The eminent French eclectic, Cousin, (1792-1867) in sum- 
ming up his views of the Divine nature, includes much that 
is in harmony with the outline I have feebly sketched. He 
says: "The universe itself is so far from exhausting God, 
that many of the attributes of God are there covered with an 
obscurity almost impenetrable, and are discovered only in 
the soul of man. God is at once substance and cause, at the 
summit of being, and at its humblest degree, infinite and finite 
together, triple, in fine ; that is, at once God, Nature, and hu- 
manity. To say that the world is God, is to admit only the 
world, and to deny God. However immense it may be, this 
world is fiuite 7 compared to God, who is infinite ; and from 
his inexhaustible infinitude He is able to draw, without 
limit, new worlds, new beings, new manifestations. Invisi- 
ble and present, revealed and withdrawn in himself, in the 
world and out of the world, communicating himself without 
cessation, and remaining incommunicable, He is at once the 
living God and the God concealed." 



198 MORALS OF SPIRITUALISM. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

What relation has Spiritualism to natural morality ? 

The mere knowledge of a future life may have no moral effi- 
cacy in a mind that does not see the grandeur of the possibili- 
ties involved in the fact. The knowledge must be spiritual- 
ized by meditation and by emotion before it can assume its 
rightful authority in shaping the moral life and constitution. 

Being a demonstration of the continuous life of man through 
the association of a spirit-body, perfect in all its parts, with 
the material body, Spiritualism has manifestly as intimate a 
relation as any fact of our mortal existence can have, to natu- 
ral morality ; for it is as much related to the present as man- 
hood is related to youth, or old age to manhood. It illustrates 
the laws that govern the relations of human life, because it 
explains innumerable occult facts in human history, throws 
a flood of light on psychological questions, and has a most di- 
rect practical bearing on our habits of thought, our affections, 
and our hopes. A moral science, in no wise based on spiritu- 
al facts, would be as imperfect as a science of physiology that 
did not recognize the brain and the nervous system. 

" The essential teaching of Spiritualism," says Mr. A. R. 
Wallace, " is, that we are, all of us, in every act and thought, 
helping to build up a mental fabric which will be and consti- 
tute ourselves, more completely after the death of the body 
than it does now. Just as this fabric is well or ill built, so 
will our progress and happiness be aided or retarded. ,, 

Every mental affection we experience, as it helps to mold 
the spirit-body, thus leaves its impress on our inmost charac- 
ter ; every thought we think, and every desire we feel is in- 
delibly registered in the very constituents of our being, and 
becomes an integrant part of our individuality : what is once 
in the memory is there forever ; it may be concealed from 



SCIENCE THE AUTHORITY. 199 

consciousness for awhile, but annihilated never. Thus well- 
ordered thoughts and a well- ordered life iiisue in correspond- 
ing endowments of the spirit-body. 

These facts have a most direct and unequivocal bearing on 
natural morality, They make us severally the authors and 
shapers of our own characters and destinies. They teach us 
that our thoughts and our deeds, good or bad, have an imper- 
ishable element which incorporates itself with our very or- 
ganisms, and these become the expression of our actual inte- 
rior states. We gravitate where our affections carry us. 
" Whate'er thou lovest, man, that too become thou must, 
God if thou lovest God, dust if thou lovest dust. ' ' 

Spiritualism must exercise an unfailing influence for good 
through the affections. Let a man or a child be thoroughly 
convinced that the deceased mother or father he reverently 
loves is living a more intense life than ever, and can read his 
every thought and scan his every act, and such a conviction 
must have a restraining influence upon him, when tempted to 
evil ; an encouragement for him, when incited to some act of 
self-sacrifice or generous daring. The knowledge that we 
think and act in the presence of a cloud of witnesses, to whom 
our very thoughts are as legible as our deeds, must have an 
influence upon us for good. 

"We should live," says Seneca, " as if we were living in the 
sight of all men ; we should think as though some one could 
and can gaze into our inmost breast.' ' Spiritualism makes us 
realize these as conditions literally existing. 

With the eclecticism which must accompany all genuine 
science, Spiritualism accepts and assimilates, from all codes, 
creeds ana QJ etems, whatever they may have of moral and re- 
ligious truth. It reduces all morality to its scientific valua- 
tion, and asks for no other authority than the fact itself ; re- 
garding a revelation as in no wise true because authoritative, 
but authoritative only in so far as it is true ; because, as Mil- 
ton bravely says, " If a man believes things only because his 
pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without having 
other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he 
holds becomes his heresy/' 



200 MORALS OF SPIRITUALISM. 

And this shows why the dictation of all seers and all spirits 
must be resented as an insult to the understanding. 

Every thought leaves its trace, every sowing has its proper 
harvest, and every act its fitting reward. If we look for other 
salvation than that whose fruit is goodness, purity, love, and 
spiritual growth, we are groping unprofitably. He who has 
these is saved already. Belief in salvation through another's 
merits or sufferings is merely hope in a magical impossibility. 

" Here heaven is not," you say, "but yonder it shall be." 
To this, Spiritualism replies in the words of the elder Fichte : 
"Nay, what then is tliat which can be different yonder from 
what it is here ? Obviously, only the objective constitution of 
the world as the environment of our existence." 

But, by a law of our being, our objective environments in 
the spirit- world are the reflex of our spiritual states ; and this 
shows how grossly those persons misrepresent Spiritualism, 
who object to it that it promises every one a good time in the 
"Summer-Land," with charming habitations and delightful 
scenery ; as if such things could constitute a heaven, inde- 
pendent of the dominant affections and the ruling passions ! 

Morality is action according to the laws of science and of 
enlightened reason ; and only those laws have an absolute in- 
terior authority which are in accordance with our sense of 
what is true, and right, and of divine validity. 

Religion is faith in the moral order of the universe ; it is 
particularly the reverent assumption, in thought and feeling, 
of the existence of an Intelligent Power beyond and above us, 
that can influence us for good, avert evil, and listen to prayer. 
But religion, in the high sense, is not superstition ; it is not a 
cowardly dread of a mysterious Being who can harm or help 
us ; it is not a greed for the satisfying things of our external 
life, having no correlation with the pure and generous affec- 
tions ; it is not a craving for any selfish and exclusive salva>- 
tion ; it seeks a salvation from spiritual error, impurity, and 
blindness. Everything which we feel and know aright is re- 
ligious. 

Religion, having in it an emotional element, may be lack- 



BASIS OF MORALITY. 201 

ing in a person otherwise richly endowed ; just as a sense of 
the beautiful in art may be lacking. And so there may be 
morality without religion, though there can be no rational re- 
ligion without morality. 

We find in spiritual science the elements of all morality and 
all religion ; and the task which the thinkers and moral pio- 
neers of the race have before them is to place on a scientific 
basis the great deductions of an absolute morality, that shall 
strike with axiomatic force every healthy, unprejudiced mind, 
and illumine all the intricate questions in social philosophy. 
And as these deductions cannot have their full sanction till 
we believe in a divine Moral Order and an invisible world, 
there must be a religion broad enough to gather all humanity 
within its fold, and having for its simple evangel the procla- 
mation of a heavenly Father, an immortal life, and a conse- 
quent morality. 

Morality being thus based on the facts of science, the laws 
of the human soul, and the proofs of a divine moral order, it 
follows that much in conventional and social morality, that 
may seem authoritative to the unthinking many, becomes im- 
moral in the sight of those who are resolved, first of all, to be 
loyal to what they esteem the laws of divine order inscribed 
in their very nature, and to be superseded by no human code. 

For the class-morality founded on class-interests, on mere 
social fictions, or on assumed religious authority, and wholly 
unconfirmed by facts, spiritual science has therefore little 
respect. It distinguishes between what J. S. Mill refers to 
as mala prohibita and mala in se ; proportioning its uncom- 
promising denunciation of the latter to its liberal charity and 
its reserved opinions in regard to the former. 

For while the latter (mala in se) give evidence of intrinsic 
badness in feeling and character, and are wrongs which no 
sane person questions, the former {mala prohibita) may be 
violations of conventional order, in regard to the right of 
which good men may differ in opinion ; violations made im- 
perative often by a reason known only to the individual, who 
all the while may be a person in every respect honorable and 



202 MORALS OF SPIRITUALISM:. 

conscientious, and actuated by a positive regard to tLose 
higher moral sanctions, the force of which no Pharisaic clamor 
can make less binding on the courageous heart. 

Socrates teaches that knowledge is essential to virtue ; thai 
no man is knowingly vicious. This is in accord with the 
whole tone of Oriental wisdom, which assumes that whoso 
really sees vices must shun them ; that moral evil is from mis- 
conception, and to be cured by the pure vision of truth. So 
Spiritualism tells us that violations of moral purity and right 
leave their marks on the spirit-body just as sins against the 
laws of health injure the physical body ; and a sane man, 
knowing the one fact, would be as solicitous to escape spirit- 
ual deformity as a sane man knowing that a certain diet 
would harm him physically would be anxious to shun it. 

Thus all violations of divine law carry their penalties with 
them, and persistence in sin, when its dire consequences are 
made known, is simple insanity ; but God's processes toward 
the whole intelligent creation being remedial and never vin- 
dictive, the insanities of men and spirits must have an end. 
Knowledge, in its highest sense, is, therefore, virtue, and 
Socrates is right. "Satan's true name is ignorance." All 
evil punishes itself, and thus tends to abolish itself. 

And thus, in the light of Spiritualism, the moral law is not 
an arbitrary code, imposed by an omnipotent law-giver; 
rather is it a series of beneficent provisions which are simply 
" a formulated expression of the law of our well-being. " Sin 
is that abuse of our moral nature which injures and retards 
spiritual growth. An intelligent spirit can at once read, in 
what we are, all that we have been ; for our whole moral life 
is revealed in our physiognomy. We cannot wrong another 
without first wronging ourselves : 

44 He that wrongs his friend 
Wrongs himself more, and ever hears ahout 
A silent court of justice in his breast. ■ ' 

His Nemesis attends him like his shadow, becomes a part of 
his very nature, never to be wholly separated from him, and 
to be silenced only when the necessity for rebuke is super- 






MAN'S DUAL NATUEE. 203 

seded by the penitence that is made manifest in reparation 
and reform. 

It was the conclusion of that saintly man and deadly foe 
of witches, Kichard Baxter, as he advanced in life, that the 
good are not as good, nor the bad as bad as we are apt to sup- 
pose. " Nearer approach and fuller trial," he says, "doth 
mate i^e best appear more weak and faulty than their ad- 
mirers at a distance think. And I find that few are so bad as 
censorious professors do imagine. In some, indeed, I find 
that human nature is corrupted into a greater likeness to 
devils than I once thought any on earth had been. But even 
in the wicked usually there is more for grace to take advan- 
tage of, and more to testify for God and holiness, than I once 
believed there had been." 

Spiritualism enforces upon us this divine lesson of charity. 
That part of a man's nature which we encounter on this nor- 
mal plane of terrestrial life is not the whole of his being. 
The soul is threefold in its manifestations ; and conscious- 
ness is not limited by that horizon within which it seems en- 
closed in our common waking state. 

In that high interior state manifest in lucid somnambulism, 
the intuitions that are ordinarily latent become often so active 
that the individual seems to reverse his modes of thinking on 
many subjects ; his affections are wakened and touched, and 
his whole character is elevated. I have known a somnambule 
in whom this difference between the two states was very 
marked. In her case conventional habits of thought would 
seem lost in the impulses of an enthusiasm that looked on all 
created things as divine, and regarded nothing in its place as 
common or unclean. Caterpillars, insects, and even reptiles, 
from which she would shrink alarmed when awake, would 
rouse in her, when somnambulic, the tenderest sympathy and 
regard. She would take them in her hands without the slight- 
est repugnance. Persons, who were objects of antipathy to 
her in her normal condition, would excite very different emo- 
tions in her when she was placed en rapport with them, and 
could scan them with her spiritual vision. Everywhere, even 



204 MORALS OF SPIRITUALISM. 

in the sinful and depraved, she would seem to detect some 
sanctifying ray of the divine splendor. 

In his "Facts in Mesmerism" Townshend relates a similar 
experience. His somnambulic patient, E. A., a French youth 
of fifteen, was, from early associations in Paris, a thorough 
materialist, rejecting all belief in God and a future life. But 
in his state of lucid somnambulism all this was changed ; nor 
must it be supposed that he here merely reflected the views of 
his mesmerizer, for there was ample evidence to the contrary. 

"Utterly unsentimental in his natural state," says Towns- 
hend, "he seemed always, when somnambulic, to take pleas- 
ure in losing himself in imaginations of another world. All 
the hard incredulity which characterized him when awake 
was gone. His willfulness was become submission ; his pride, 
humility ; and, in proportion as he seemed to know more, he 
appeared to esteem himself less. Often would he regret the 
errors of his waking hours, and speak of his natural state as 
of an existence apart. Often would he exclaim, ' now I wish 
I could always see things as I do now !' There is not a per- 
son who saw him in the mesmeric state but remarked the 
change for the better his physiognomy underwent. His af- 
fections, also, were enlarged. Egotistical in general, and dis- 
playing but little sensibility, he, in the mesmeric state, show- 
ed all the warmth of a kind-hearted nature." 

The state of lucid somnambulism must not be confounded 
with those imperfect developments in which some of the 
moral faculties seem paralyzed or perverted. Thus we hear 
of persons who, conscientious in their waking state, have, 
when somnambulic, been guilty of theft or murder. These 
are simply states of insanity, either produced by the obses- 
sion of malignant spirits, or by the predominance of the ani- 
mal nature during the abnormal lethargy of faculties that 
might exercise a restraining influence. 

The teachings of Spiritualism thus lead us to regard sin as 
spiritual disease, to be remedied only by an entire reforma- 
tion of the will, the affections, and the habits ; and not as that 
mystic irreparable offence against an Infinite Being, which 



SIN PUNISHES ITSELF. 205 

only an infinite vicarious expiation can atone for and remove. 
On the contrary, sin is an offence against the sinner himself, 
and his punishment will be to realize the fact in all its hide- 
ousness ; and, as memory is everlasting, so, in a certain sense, 
his sin and its punishment have in them an element of im- 
mortality, however purified he may become by penitence and 
good deeds. What more fearful punishment for the evil doer, 
can be imagined ? 

Many of the early Christian Fathers took a view of sin not 
very different from this. According to Origen, evil is the only 
thing which has the foundation of its being in itself and not 
in God, and which is, therefore, founded in no being, but is 
nothing else than an estrangement from the true Being, and 
has only a subjective and no objective existence at all, and is 
in itself nothing. 

" It has been asked," says St. Thomas Aquinas, " If there 
is a God, whence comes evil? We should rather conclude 
thus : If there is evil, there is a God, for evil would have no 
existence without order in the good, the privation of which is 
evil." 

Such were also the views of Spinoza, in whose system God 
is not a judge who inflicts punishment. The sin or crime 
punishes itself. Sin is privation, and privation is nothing 
positive, and is entitled evil in reference to our human un- 
derstanding only, not to the understanding of God. This, too, 
is the Buddhist notion of sin, according to which every act, 
word, or thought has its consequence, which will appear 
sooner or later in the present or some future state. Beward 
or punishment is simply the inevitable effect of Kara (fate or 
consequence), which works out its own results. 

The facts of materialization show that after he quits this 
terrestrial sphere man retains his triune nature; that he has 
still a faculty relating him to matter and to earth ; a spiritual 
body ; and an inscrutable spiritual principle. 

The spirit-man, when brought within the material sphere, 
does not represent the spirit in the fullness of its faculties • 
he i6 under the law of limitations ; in the lowest of his three 



206 MORALS OF SPIRITUALISM. 

states. This may explain why there is so much that is unsat- 
isfying in the conversation of materialized or partially mate- 
rialized spirits. The more they descend into the environments 
of matter the more do their higher faculties become closed. 
Thus the descriptions they give us of the spirit- world are often 
conflicting and confused ; they mistake fantasies for reminis- 
cences, and even their recollections of their life on earth be- 
come mixed and inaccurate. 

Swedenborg tells us that "such spirits are adjoined to man 
as he himself is as to affection or love." He cautions us, 
and with reason, against the arts and deceptions practiced by 
the malignant and impure. I have heard of a powerful me- 
dium for physical manifestations through whom impure 
spirits, partially materialized, have come, and indicated their 
character by their acts. This shows that the repeated warn- 
ings of Swedenborg and other seers against low and unscru- 
pulous spirits should be carefully heeded. Purity of heart 
and purpose and an inflexible resolve to resist all promptings 
to evil, constitute the only state in which the prosecution of 
spiritual investigations through mediumship should be ven- 
tured on. Safety is to be found, not in ignoring the subject 
and refusing to investigate, but in studying it under the 
right conditions and with a clean heart and will. 

As a general rule, like attracts like ; but evil spirits may 
try to control a rightly disposed medium, and, in order to do 
this, may affect a purity which is foreign to their nature. 
The utmost caution should be practiced in all our dealings 
with these still fallible and imperfect beings. We should test 
them very much as we would strangers in the flesh, who come 
to us without satisfactory credentials. The best mediums, it 
should be remembered, are sensitives, subject to impressions 
from both good and evil influences. That the evil sometimes 
prevail is not to be wondered at ; and we should be prepared 
accordingly for fraudulent manifestations, mingled with the 
genuine. 

In the triune principle is the key to much that may seem 
incomprehensible both in the microcosm of man and in the 



FINITE AND INFINITE. 207 

macrocosm of God. We have seen that for a spirit to mani- 
fest himself in the earth-sphere there must be conditions ; 
there must be a conditioned medium, and the spirit himself 
must undoubtedly come within limitations that make him 
different from what he is in his normal state, and these limi- 
tations may be adapted to the character and state of the me- 
dium. This triune principle extends through all degrees of 
being till it brings the Supreme himself into relations to his 
created universe, and these constitute his state of limitation 
as expressed in Nature. 

In this principle man has his assurance of an unending ex- 
istence. He has been brought into being by a power beyond 
himself, and that power must be the universal power of Na- 
ture, of which he is a part ; and the very essence and life of 
this Nature is the triune God himself in his self limited and 
relative state ; and since out of God's life no life can utterly 
fall, or be flung "as rubbish to the void/' what we call 
dissolution is change and progress, and there is no actual 
death. 

Recently at a meeting of the British Association, Dr. Hook- 
er exhibited a plant which captured and digested flies. Re- 
ferring to this, a well-known secular leader, who prides him- 
self on his outspoken atheism, remarks: "The intelligent 
power which planned vegetable traps to catch insects, and 
stew them to death, would hardly be worth worshiping.' ' 
Here there is a double begging of the question : first, we are 
called upon to admit that there is a regular design or plan 
after the manner of human contrivers ; and secondly, that 
death is a calamity to the insects, instead of being what it may 
be for all that we know to the contrary, namely, the means of 
a rise in being. 

The higher Pantheism is universal life, the life of God ; but 
to say that the universe is God is to admit the universe and 
to deny God. God is something more than the universe, even 
%2 man is something more than his mortal body. 

Spiritualism fixes no creed, but from all creeds adopts what- 
ever truth is reconcilable to the reason. Among the new re- 



208 MOEALS OF SPIRITUALISM. 

ligious sects of Germany is one bearing the name of " Ccnfes* 
sors of the Message of Truth, Liberty and Love." Spiritual- 
ism would, I think, have little to find fault with in their creed 
(as far as it goes), which is as follows : 

"1. We acknowledge the world to be a unity of infinite space 
and time, the creative energy of which we call World-Spirit. 
2. We acknowledge that humanity is one of the innumerable 
forms in which the World-Spirit manifests himself in the 
series of his developments ; that humanity is progressing in 
all ways, and that it should be every man's task to assist in 
this improvement with all his powers. 3 We acknowledge 
the indestructibility of Essence in all the phenomena of the 
World Spirit, and, consequently, also in men, and we there- 
fore consider death to be only the transition into a new form 
of temporal existpnce. 4. We acknowledge that there must be 
a retribution for all actions, but that this is only of a temporal 
nature. 5. We acknowledge that all those actions are good 
which are in harmony with the principle of the Essence, 
equality of all men, and which tend to the progress of hu- 
manity'; and that all actions not in accordance with this are 
objectionable. 6. We acknowledge the notion of God, as the 
idea of absolute perfection, to be a postulate of thehuuan 
reason. 

" The ethics deduced from this are : 1. The commands of 
Liberty : Be moderate, be true, be clean, be industrious, be 
economical, be free. 2. The commands of Justice : Offend 
not, ill-treat not, betray not, malign not, kill not, cheat not, 
steal not. 3. The commands of Love : Be courteous to all ; 
be charitable ; cultivate the good affections ; be forgiving ; be 
compassionate with the unhappy ; be cheerful with the hap- 
py ; assist the poor ; tend the sick ; protect the weak." 

All that is true in this, Spiritualism would supplement and 
render more positive and distinct. It would teach that in the 
transition through death we carry our human memories and 
affections and all the knowledge that we have gained in the 
earth-life ; that the departed spirit has the power and the 
privilege, under certain conditions, of revisiting earth, seeing 
those it left behind, and communicating with them, directly 
in their higher, or indirectly in their lower states of conscious- 
ness ; that we gravitate to what we find congenial ; that we 
mold our spirit-bodies by every thought, act and affection of 
the earth-life ; that there is a principle in our very nature 
which punishes all violations of divine order, and, sooner or 
later, in this world or in another, works reformation without 
other compulsion than that of experience and knowledge ; 



A NEW REVELATION. 209 

that all the truths and all the good examples and all the reli- 
gions of the past are our heritage, from which we may select 
and assimilate what we need for our spiritual growth ; that 
good or bad influences may be attracted by the state of the 
will and the affections ; that earnest prayer is no mere shout- 
ing into a void, answerless and echoless, but the expression of 
a true spiritual instinct, the very life-principle of religion, and 
having an efficacy proportioned to the right spiritual condi- 
tions under which it is exercised ; that the highest wisdom is 
to trust rationally in God and to worship him especially by 
doing his will, as indicated in the laws of Nature and the hu- 
man soul, and by laboring for the universal good. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

11 Do we want a new revelation ?" it is often objected ; and 
to this some one aptly replies : " Yes ; what you want is a 
revelation that the supreme fact of your old revelation, the 
fact of immortality, is an actual living truth. ,, A knowledge 
of this is what Spiritualism offers. It is very near to every 
one of us, and yet we overlook it ; for, in the words of Schil- 
ler : 

1 4 That is the truly secret which lies ever open before us, 

And the least seen is that which the eye constantly sees." 
How much of discontent and of neglect of life's grand op- 
portunities is traceable to unbelief in a future state ! There 
are some persons so happily constituted that they " do not 
need the smart of gur l t to make them virtuous, nor the re- 
gret of folly to make them wise ;" persons who seem as if 
they needed not the spur of belief to induce them to cultivate 
their moral and intellectual natures ; who appear to inherit 
their morality as they do their gentle manners, and to shrink 
from vice as naturally as they would from vulgarity. But 
these are exceptional natures. 
14 



210 NOTIONS OF A FUTURE LIFE. 

"lam always very much attached to this life," writes 
Alexander Humboldt to Varnhagen, " having learned from 
you that, according to Kant's doctrine, there is not much to 
boast of after our dissolution/'* And yet, with a strange in- 
consistency, this man, as he lay on his death- bed, while the 
sun's rays streamed in at the window, could say: "How 
grand these rays ! they seem to beckon Earth to Heaven !" 
The heart was too strong for the speculative intellect ; and 
the great naturalist's last utterance was a realization of the 
idea of immortality. 

William Humboldt, different in many respects from his bro- 
ther Alexander, accepted the philosophy of Spinoza, and did 
not believe in the continuance of our individuality into an- 
other life. "I must avow it frankly," said he, "that, right 
or wrong, I do not hold much to the hope of another life. I 
would not make for myself another existence out of my hu- 
man ideas, aud yet it is impossible for me to make it out of 
any other. I regard death with absolute calmness, but with- 
out desire or enthusiasm. " 

How soon a man's opinions get to be his loves ! A man 
argues in favor of annihilation till at last he gets to hope for 
it, to court it ! Pride of opinion and other subtle forces help 
on the consummation. What powers of acclimation in the 
human soul when it can thus learn to prefer the air of the 
charnel-house to the breeze on the living hills bathed in God's 
sunshine ! 

Francis W. Newman, author of "Theism, Doctrinal and 
Practical," and many other estimable works, writes (1873), 
in regard to a future life, that his desire is " here very feeble;" 
and he thinks that " either poetical fancy, or moral specula- 
tion, or both together, originated the conception alike among 
barbarians and civilized men !" 



* Although Kant in his philosophy narrows down the grounds of belief 
In immortality to the fact of amoral element in man, he seems, in his 
higher moods, to have had a vision of the truth; for he says: "Perhaps it 
will be proved yet that the human soul, even in this life, is, by an insolu- 
ble communion, connected with all the immaterial natures of the spirit- 
world, acting upon these and receiving; impressions from them. " lam 
indebted for this quotation to Dr. G. Bloede, of Brooklyn, N. Y.. a most 
intelligent Spiritualist, whose comment on Kant's words is: "The true 
philosopher as well as the true poet is a seer!" 



INDIFFERENCE TO LIFE. 211 

But Spiritualism shows that no explanation of the belief in 
immortality could be further than this from the practical 
truth. 

David F. Strauss, author of fl The Old Faith and the New," 
tells us that the prospect of the " eternal persistence of life " 
would fill him "with dismay.'* Innocent and interesting 
timidity ! As if this good Mother Nature could not be trust- 
ed ! As if she will not proportion our future horizons to our 
future capacities and needs—taking care that, as our day, 
our strength shall be ! 

Mr. Leon Case, in an extraordinary communication to the 
Springfield (Mass.) Republican of Oct. 30th, 1874, in which, 
after an eight days' examination of the phenomena through 
the Eddy family at Chittenden, Vt., he expresses his belief 
confidently in the genuineness of the manifestations, remarks: 
11 1 cannot awaken in myself a single pulse of desire for im- 
mortality, however blest." But he has naively admitted, 
just before : "I attribute the fact of my lacking desire there, 
to my long conviction that death is the dissolution of all indi- 
viduality." He had held the opinion, and argued for it till it 
became his love, and it was a serious disappointment to him 
to receive confirmatory and palpable evidence of a life be- 
yond the present. Wisely does Solomon warn us : "Keep 
thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of 
life." As we think, we are. Habits of thought in a certain 
direction will make even ghastly death appear more lovely to 
us than immortal life. 

Indifference to life, present or future, is always an excep- 
tional, an artificial, a morbid state of mind. Often it may 
spring from the absence of those affections which play so im- 
portant a part in making a reunion with beloved objects an 
irrepiessible craving of the heart. Often it is a growth of 
forces and of habits, among which intellectual pride and a 
wish to differ from the common herd of men are prominent. 

Thomas Buckle (1822-1862), eminent as a thinker and 
author, and very near to being a Spiritualist when he died,* 

•See the London Spiritual Magazine for March, 1873. 



212 MESSAGE OF SPIRITUALISM. 

rests the evidence of immortality mainly upon the universali- 
ty of the affections ; upon the yearning of every mind to care 
for something out of itself. For him, as for most men, the af- 
fections cry out for a future life, and he says, in words which 
every sound heart that knows what it is to love profoundly 
will be likely to respond to— " The doctrine of immortality is 
the doctrine of doctrines ; a truth compared with which it is 
indifferent whether anything else be true. It is a belief 
which, if eradicated, would drive most of us to despair." 

Spiritualism, while it founds the fact of immortality main- 
ly on phenomenal proofs, shows that the affections and the 
moral nature are prescient in their yearnings, and justifies all 
their demands. 

11 If there is no life beyond the present/* says Edward La- 
boujaye, " then is this one a lie and a mockery. Immortality 
is something more than a recompense ; it is the fulfillment, the 
justification of life." 

"We must be immortal," says Berthold Auerbach, " or it 
were a cruelty to let us men alone know that we must die. 
The moth does not know that he must die : he thinks the 
burning light is a gay and brilliant flower, and he dies in the 
flowery flame." 

' 'The message with which Spiritualism purports to be 
charged," says Mr. St. George Stock, "is simply this— The 
dead are still alive. Thus it addresses itself to the social affec- 
tions ; and turning to the self-regarding element in human 
nature, it says : 'As you make yourself, so shall you be, here 
and hereafter. There is no magic of water, or faith, or an- 
other's righteousness to save you from the effects of your own 
conduct.' The belief in a future life Spiritualism professes to 
establish by the only method which can carry conviction, 
namely, by offering positive evidence." 

To refuse to look into the strange and incredible is to neg- 
lect oftentimes the most precious opportunities of discovery. 
Hypotheses that have been jeered at as wild and monstrous 
by practical men have been a clew to the grandest results. It 
has frequently needed a large amount of credulity to persist 



MESMEEIC PRECURSORS. 213 

in experiments which, in their success, have contributed 
largely to human welfare. 

Seven years before the occurrence of the spiritual phenome- 
na at Hydesville, I had been introduced to many cognate factg 
and phenomena through a sensitive in whom I had induced 
the state of mesmeric somnambulism. In her highest state of 
lucidity she would frequently profess to see and converse 
with spirits. But though I had the amplest reason to believe 
in her intelligence and good faith, I was not sufficiently pos- 
sessed by the spiritual hypothesis to devote myself to follow- 
ing the phenomenal vein out to satisfactory results. Had 1 
done so, I now see that I might have anticipated many of the 
facts, at which I have since laboriously arrived. 

In 1778 Anton Mesmer made his appearance in Paris, and 
the phenomena by means of the mesmeric passes became 
known. In 1784 the Marquis de Puysegur showed that a 
state of somnambulic clairvoyance could be induced by mes- 
merism ; and many experimenters, both in Germany and 
France, caught glimpses of those further marvels which Mod- 
ern Spiritualism has since made common. 

From a correspondence between two French mesmerizers, 
Billot and Deleuze, published in 1836, it appears that they 
were well aware of nearly all the most extraordinary phe- 
nomena that have been repeated in our day. Billot writes 
that he has both seen and felt the spirits ; he and his co-secre- 
taries have seen and felt them, and he calls God to witness 
the truth of the declaration. Deleuze replies that the im- 
mortality of the soul and the possibility of communicating 
with spirits have been proved to him ; he has not personally 
witnessed facts equal to those cited by Billot, but persons 
worthy of all confidence have made to him the like reports. 
He mentions the experience of a distinguished physician 
who has clairvoyants who "cause material objects to present 
themselves." In regard to this, Deleuze says : "I cannot con- 
ceive how spiritual beings are able to carry material objects." 
Billot aptly replies, that "the question of Spiritualism is not 
one of opinions, but of facts : these are the things that lead 



214 THE SEERESS OF PREVORST. 

to the truth." Obviously, to separate our facts from our con- 
jectures is our duty in this investigation. 

Bertrand, D'Hunin, Puysegur, Seguin, and other magnet- 
izers, who had stood on the very threshold of Spiritualism, 
drew back in awe and alarm from further investigation. De- 
leuze fears that the prosecution of inquiry may "trouble 
human reason and lead to dangerous consequences. " " Magic 
is rediscovered," said Dupotet, who now (1874), at an ad- 
vanced age, accepts the spiritual phenomena as the culmina- 
tion of his mesmeric researches. " The magnetic forces can- 
not be explained," said Puysegur. "We have no organs," 
said Morin, "for discovering spiritual beings." "The real 
causes of apparitions, of objects displaced, of suspensions, 
and of a great portion of the marvelous," said D'Hunin and 
Bertrand, "are inscrutable." Seguin reports that "wisdom 
commands him to stop on the edge of an abyss which no man 
can pass with impunity." 

How far the religum of theological teachings may have in- 
fluenced these affrighted investigators would be a curious 
subject of inquiry. Obviously they were on the verge of the 
great proclamation of the facts of Modern Spiritualism, but 
they recoiled and left the further probing of the facts to the 
courage of a little girl nine years old, Miss Kate Fox, of 
Hydesville, New York. 

It would be unjust, however, did I not pause here to recall 
the fact that Dr. Justinus Kerner, chief physician at Weins- 
berg, in Germany, and who died in 1859, has left in his " Life 
of Frederica Hauffe, the Seeress of Prevorst," a record of in- 
dubitable spiritual phenomena occurring as early as 1826, and 
fully accepted by him. They include nearly all the most im- 
portant that have been developed up to the present time : 
rappings, movements of objects, levitations, apparitions, 
direct speech of spirits, thought-reading and clairvoyance. 

Kerner was of course ridiculed for what was looked upon as 
his "credulity." The editors and the savants decided, as 
usual, on these phenomena, without taking the slightest 
trouble to investigate them ; but they found in Kerner a keen 



COMMON OBJECTIONS. 215 

and intrepid champion of the truth, who in literary skill was 
their superior, and in science was not lacking. Time has vin- 
dicated his sagacity and his truthfulness. 

There is a class of opponents of Spiritualism, who, having 
been forced to admit the phenomena, attempt to depreciate 
and undervalue them. Their objections are summed up in 
the question Cui bono ? For what good ? What is the use of 
it all ? As if we were bound to answer the question when a 
fact or phenomenon of Nature is presented ! As if the skeptic 
could not make precisely the same objection to the universe 
itself, and prove the nothingness of things by his Cui bono! 
He who would set facts aside with a sneer may live to find 
them irrepressible. 

One person, styling himself a medical professor, asserts that 
" there is no connection whatever between the phenomena of 
Spiritualism and the theory of Spiritualism ;" which is about 
as logical as it would be to say that there is no connection be- 
tween our solar system and the Copernican theory. And yet 
platitudes like this, uttered in the loud, confident tone of a 
professor, often impose on the timid and unthinking. 

The contradictory character of the communications from 
spirits is a stumbling-block to many. " Why do spirits talk 
commonplace and tell fibs ?" we are asked ; and the reply is : 
" Perhaps to show us that they carry with them their mortal 
traits, and that the transition to a spiritual state leaves their 
individuality intact.' ' 

To the just and reverent thinker the current objections to 
the facts of Spiritualism must appear as superficial as they are 
arrogant and rash. A fact of Nature can seem trivial only 
when our ignorance places it in wrong relations or overlooks 
its real significance. Nature does not equivocate, though she 
may seem to do so. The disposition to slight these phenom- 
ena, to malign or misinterpret them, is merely a proof of our 
impotence to read and master them. 

As for those persons who admit the facts, but pronounce 
them diabolical, and would drive us back from investigation 



216 FEAK OF SPIRITS. 

by the cries of " danger !" " degradation !" all such opponents 
transcend the domain of science and enter that of mere theol- 
ogy, where I cannot follow them at""present. The purpose of 
this exposition is to deal with the facts that have led to the 
spiritual hypothesis, and not to discuss the question how far 
the spirits manifesting themselves in these days are good or 
evil, harmless or dangerous, moral or immoral. Surely it is 
something if we can prove to our modern Sadducees that 
spirits of any kind may exist. Even a " degraded " spirit may 
be a suggestive fact. 

Meanwhile all advocates of the Satanic theory will do well 
to ponder Locke's advice to those who, in his day, would 
frighten him from the pursuit of truth by this cry of devil. 
"It is very becoming," he says, "that men's zeal for truth 
should go as far as their proofs, but not go for proofs them- 
selves. Talking with a supposition and insinuation that truth 
and knowledge, nay, and religion, too, stand and fall with 
their systems, is at best but an imperious way of begging the 
question, and assuming to themselves, under the pretence of 
zeal for the cause of- God, a title to infallibility." 

The late Baron Guldenstubbe, a friend too early lost to 
Spiritualism, in his treatise "La Realite des Esprits," re- 
marks : " The absurd fear of demons, prevalent especially 
during the middle ages, is precisely the principal cause of the 
unfrequency of supersensual phenomena, the spirits neither 
wishing nor being able to manifest themselves to people who 
take them for unclean spectres. Surely there is nothing more 
fitted to alienate spirits as well as men and animals, than this 
invincible repugnance, this shrinking horror, this utter Jack 
of sympathy." 

" The only true remedy," says James Martineau, " for the 
dark infidelity and cold materialism that threaten the utter 
destruction of the religious life in a large portion of the peo- 
ple, is to give them a living faith,— true to the conscience, true 
to the intellect, true to the realized science of the age. The 
Spiritualist is professedly struggling for the realization of 



LOGIC OF FACTS. 21? 

this object, amidst the taunts of Orthodoxy and the execra- 
tions of Fanaticism."* 

Dr. Wm. B. Carpenter, in his Mental Physiology (page 
627), is ready to admit all the phenomena that have come 
under the measuring-rod of his own experience. He can be- 
lieve that a table may move from unconscious muscular press- 
ure. But if it moves when nobody is touching it, then the 
spectators, who think they see it move, are simply biologized. 
They are " oblivious of the difference between external and 
internal evidence ; between the testimony of our senses and 
that of our sense." 

In other words, if we see a table rise from the floor to the 
ceiling, then, rather than believe our own senses and those of 
any number of sane witnesses, we must accept Dr. Carpen- 
ter's a priori assumption that there can be no such thing as a 
spiritual -force able to move a material object, and that con- 
sequently we must be deceived. 

Now which, in the light of that common sense to which he 
appeals, would be the more reasonable of these two conclu- 
sions ? 

I am sorry to see so erudite an Aristotelian as Mr. Thomas 
Davidson falling into Dr. Carpenter's word- trap for super- 4 
ficial thinkers, and charging Mr. A. R. Wallace with having 
"come to be a believer in Spiritualism on grounds entirely 
illogical"— the lack of logic being in Mr. Wallace's trusting 
the report of his own senses and those of a million other wit- 
nesses, rather than shaping his belief to fit Dr. Carpenter's 
a priori notion of what Nature ought not to permit ! 

If philosophy cannot bring more force than this against 
that logic of facts which makes men Spiritualists, it had bet- 
ter keep mute. Let it ponder what Lord Bacon says of such 
rash experiments before it tries to overleap stubborn facts 
from the spring-board of purely a priori assumptions. 

Another class of malcontents, looking at the phenomena of 

*This remark was intended for the philosophical Spiritualists, but it will 
apply equally well to the Spiritualists who have become such through their 
acquaintance with phenomenal facts. 



218 ESTHETIC OBJECTIONS. 

Spiritualism from an esthetic point of view, find them "in 
bad taste." The coarse, hard, unmannerly facts violate all 
their preconceptions of what the spirit- world ought to be ; 
shock all their notions of spiritual propriety, and contradict 
all the theories they may have inherited or formed of spirits 
as refined disembodied essences, freed from material sur- 
roundings and too pure to be brought in contact with them 
ever again. 

But Nature evidently does not consult the dilletanti in her 
operations. She does many things "in bad taste ;" and a 
man, oppressed with a sense of his dignity, has to submit to 
many mortifying checks and natural limitations. The very 
processes of birth and death, alimentation and elimination, 
are, esthetically considered, offensive. But, as Dryden says : 
*• "Reaching above our nature does no good, 
We must sink back into our own flesh and blood. ' ' 

An English clergyman of the radical school finds "much 
that is repulsive in the so called revelations of Spiritualism, ,, 
and is led "to hope most earnestly that it may not be true." 
He says : " Spiritualists appeal to a vast portion of mankind 
who prefer seeing to believing, who are ever hankering after 
signs and wonders, and whose materialistic notions of God 
and soul and heaven compel them to seek satisfaction in visi- 
ble proofs. We come into the field with very different weap- 
ons. 'The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. ■ And if 
we cannot hold our ground with these, we refuse to adopt an 
inferior mode of warfare, or pander to what seems to us a 
morbid craving for hidden mysteries. ,, 

Hidden mysteries I So were many of the wonders of sci- 
ence at one time "hidden mysteries ;" and the vulgar often 
thought that chemists and geologists were seeking after hid- 
den and forbidden mysteries. Is Superstition now driven 
from the hovel to the pulpit ? 

But what relevancy is there in this lofty talk of "carnal 
weapons " and "morbid cravings " ? The question is simply 
one of facts, not of processes of belief, nor of esthetic sympa- 
thies, nor of theological speculations, nor of "warfare" of 



SENTIMENTAL OBJECTIONS. 219 

any kind. As well might we accuse Euclid of " carnality" 
in proving his propositions, as charge it on Spiritualists in es- 
tablishing theirs. And if, as this writer says, Spiritualists 
appeal to those " who prefer seeing to believing," what is 
this but a proof that they are profoundly sincere in their 
knowledge, and that they are dealing, not with hazy abstrac- 
tions but with things that may be tested and verified ? 

As to the imputation that they "pander to what seems a 
morbid craving for hidden mysteries," what is this loose 
phrase but the easy refuge of one too apathetic, too timid, or 
too preoccupied to face and investigate these extraordinary 
phenomena? Is the geologist actuated by a " morbid crav- 
ing," when he pries under slabs of sandstone and earthy lay- 
ers for the evidences of his science? Or shall the marvels 
that have relation to the existence of an immortal soul in 
man, be accounted as less legitimate and important objects of 
study than the discovery of the fossil remains of extinct varie- 
ties of animals ? 

Mr. St. George Stock has well replied to this class of cen- 
sors. He says : " Another a priori objection against Spiritual- 
ism rests on our ideas of a future state. But if the facts alleged 
are found to be facts, so much the worse for our ideas. Hon- 
est old Whately could not bear the phrase, ' I should be sorry 
to think.' Let truth first be established, and sentiment will 
soon adapt itself to it." 

"Spiritualism, morally considered," says Hudson Tuttle, "is 
the highest scientific conception of man's relations to himself, 
to his fellow men, to the spiritual world, and to the divine or- 
der of things. It is the essence of philosophy. It asks noth- 
ing without giving a reason, teaches nothing without giving 
a cause. It urges the individual to become just and pure, be- 
cause no other being in the universe will receive as great a 
reward for his right doing as the individual, and because 
every being in the universe will be better for that right do- 
ing." 



220 THE PROOF PALPABLE. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



One of the most common of the phenomena of Modern 
Spiritualism has been the appearance of hands, believed to 
be materialized by spirit power, and therefore called spirit- 
hands. Every experienced investigator has been convinced 
of the reality of this manifestation. 

On the eleventh of January, 1876, I was present at a seance, 
where two spirit-hands were molded in paraffine, Mrs. Mary 
M. Hardy, of Boston, Mass., being the medium, and the con- 
ditions being satisfactory to those who sat near, as I did. 
This experiment had been several times performed in the 
presence of Prof. William Denton, by whom it was first sug- 
gested ; and we may hope it will eventually be produced 
under conditions that will satisfy the most skeptical of its 
genuineness. Molds of spirit- faces have been got through 
Mrs. Hardy's mediumship. 

The experiment is a step in the same direction with spirit- 
photography, of the reality of which we have ample proofs. 
Some of these will be found clearly stated in Mr. Alfred R. 
Wallace's " Defence of Modern Spiritualism." Other and 
later proofs have been given by my correspondent, the Rev. 
William Stainton-Moses, himself a medium, a scholar, and a 
careful investigator, in the record of his investigatons in " Hu- 
man Nature," a London publication. Mr. Beattie, William 
Howitt, Benjamin Coleman, M. Leymarie, M. de Yeh, Prince 
Wittgenstein, Lady Caithness, and many others in Europe, 
and Prof. Gunning, Mr. Gurney, Mr. Livermore, Mr. Luther 
Colby, and thousands of careful investigators in America, 
have placed the fact of spirit- photography beyond a question. 

On the 25th of December, 1875, Mr. Jay J. Hartman, a 
spirit-photographer at the gallery No. 100 West Fourth street, 
Cincinnati, stood the test of a free public investigation of 
his powers and of the reality of the phenomenon. Many per- 



SPIRIT-PHOTOGRAPHS. 221 

sons had got through him unquestionable likenesses of de- 
ceased relatives and friends ; still the skeptics denounced him 
as an impostor. But the result of this examination corrobo- 
rated all the evidences we had previously had of the fact of 
this form of mediumship. After three unsuccessful trials, at 
the time fixed, and in a gallery which he had never before 
entered, there was a fourth trial, at which Mr. Hartman did 
not touch the plate or enter the dark room, and this trial was 
successful. Messrs. J. Slatter, C. H. Muhrman, V. Cutter, 
J. P. Weckman, F. T. Moreland, and T. Teeple, all of them 
practical photographers, and two of them claiming to be ex- 
perts in detecting frauds, signed the following certificate : 

"We, the undersigned, having taken part in the public 
investigation of 'Spirit-Photography,' given by Mr. Jay J. 
Hartman, hereby certify that we have closely examined and 
watched the manipulations of our own marked plates through 
all the various workings in and out of the dark room, and 
have been unable to discover any sign of fraud or trickery on 
the part of Mr. Jay J. Hartman ; and we further certify that 
during the last sitting, when the result was obtained, Mr. Jay 
J. Hartman did not handle the plate nor enter the dark room 
at any time.' ' 

In the second edition of "Planchette" I expressed a doubt 
of the genuineness of the spirit- photographs got through Mr. 
Mumler, of Boston. My doubt was founded on words of his 
own, reported to me by hearers whose good faith I could not 
question. When taunted with trickery he had replied with- 
out resentment in language that left the impression that he 
was not guiltless. I am now convinced that the impression 
did him injustice. He knew that serious denial would be of 
no avail, and so he parried the chaffing of skepties with words 
that were misinterpreted. 

Having satisfied myself by abundant testimony that Mr. 
Mumler had been instrumental in producing genuine spirit- 
photographs, I stated the fact, and in a third edition of 
" Planchette " withdrew the charge of fraud. Renewed in- 
vestigation has satisfied me that many genuine spirit-photo- 
graphs have been produced through his mediumship ; and I 
am happy to have my opinion confirmed by Mr. Gurney, the 
experienced photographer of New York. In a conversation 



222 PEOOFS PALPABLE. 

with Dr. Eugene Crowell,* Mr. Gurney said that he had full 
faith in the genuineness of the photographs ; that he visited 
Mumler's gallery for the purpose of investigation ; that he 
told Muuiler the object of his visit, his name and profession ; 
to all which Muuiler replied that he was welcome to investi- 
gate the process in any way he chose. Dr. Crowell says : 

"Mr. Gurney then took clean plates and examined them 
with the closest scrutiny, and prepared them for the camera. 
The camera itself he took apart, examining the interior, the 
object-glass, etc., and when all was prepared for taking the 
picture— a friend of Mr. Gurney's being in the chair— Mr. 
Mumler placed his hand upon the camera, the lens was un- 
covered, and in a minute or two the photograph was taken. 
Upon proving the negative a spirit-form was visible upon the 
plate beside the likeness of the sitter. The process was re- 
peated with like results ; Mr. Gurney managing everything 
from beginning to end ; Mr Mumler not touching an article, 
excepting when he placed his hand upon the camera at the 
moment of taking the picture. 

"Mr. Gurney sometime afterward, providing himself with 
plates and chemicals of Ids own, visited Boston again, and 
calling at Mr. Mumler's rooms again, went through the pro- 
cess, using only his own materials, with similar results. He 
spent some hours in scrutinizing everything about the room, 
and everything pertaining to the process, and he was perfect- 
ly satisfied there was no deception. 

" I then inquired if he— Mr. Gurney— could produce simi- 
lar pictures. He replied: 'Yes, nearly similar; but it 
would require some days to effect the purpose, while Mumler 
produces them in three minutes.' " 

Dr. Crowell testifies in the most explicit manner to the 
facts of materialization. He says : 

"Innumerable are the proofs that have been furnished of 
the identity of my spirit friends. Sometimes, when request- 
ed, they have given their names, and at others have unex- 
pectedly announced them. Many have presented themselves 
to me visibly at Moravia, and at Dr. Slade's, some of them 
while visible conversing with me; and two of them I have 
seen apart from any medium. I have in hundreds of in- 
stances been touched by spirits ; have been lovingly patted 
by their hands, and have felt and heard the rustling of their 
robes. Many times I have heard music from material instru- 
ments, produced by spirit touches, and once have heard it as 
clearly and distinctly when no material instrument v*as in the 
room. ,, 



•Author of "The Identity of Primitive Christianity and Modern Spirit- 
ualism, 11 perhaps * he most thorough exposition of the subject that has 
yet been made. Dr. Crowtll is entitled to the gratitude of all those who 
prize truth above authority. 



MOEE TESTIMONY. 223 

Whilst I am bringing this volume to a conclusion, the testi- 
mony in regard to the materialization phenomena crowds on 
me so fast, and from so many trustworthy parties, that ] 
should be embarrassed in my choice did I deem that furthei 
facts were needed. Col. Olcott has prosecuted his investiga- 
tions at Chittenden, Vt., in the most thorough manner, test- 
ing the Eddy phenomena in various ways, and satisfying 
himself fully that they are genuine. In this he is supported 
by numerous competent witnesses, whose names are published 
in the New York Graphic. Mr. Max Lenzberg, of Hartford, 
Conn., in a letter to the Daily Times of that city, gives an 
account of his and his family's experiences at Chittenden. He 
describes the battery test applied to Honto, the Indian spirit- 
maiden, by Dr. Beard, a skeptic. The full power of the bat- 
tery was let on, and Honto received it without flinching. No 
mortal could have stood it. 

Mr. Lenzberg states that the spirit-form of his wife's brother, 
Abraham, who died seventeen years ago in Texas, appeared 
on the stage at Chittenden in his shirt-sleeves ; and he adds : 

"My wife recognized him at once, and said to him, 'Let 
me introduce you to my husband.' I spoke to him in German ; 
he answered, • Ja, ich bin es ; ich freuse mich sehr ' — ( ' Yes, it 
is I ; I am much delighted.') It was a very distinct appari- 
tion ; there could be no mistake as to the reality of the figure, 
and iny viife said there was none as to identity. 

"Another night he came again, and spoke to us in the pecu- 
liar idiom of that German dialect which belongs to Westphalia ; 
I detected the idiomatic peculiarity and recognized the words 
as those unmistakably of a person from that region where my 
wife came from ; the word 'morgen* especially — the German 
for i moming y y when he was saying 'to-morrow morning; ' — 
was beyond any mistake as to the part of Germany the speaker 
had lived in. " 

Mr. Lenzberg further saw the apparition of a little daugh- 
ter he had lost from earth when she was less than a year old. 
She was led in by the spirit of his wife's mother, and "ap- 
peared as a child of two years, but preserved her own look." 
He says : 

" I went to the railing and spoke to her close by—' Oh, my 
darling angel Sophie, I can see you ! ' She smiled, and danced 
to show her joy at the recognition. My daughter Lena had 
also come to the railing, and said, ■ Do you see me ? do you 



224 FACT AGAINST THEORY. 

know me?' and the little child, laughing, rapped yes on the 
railing with her fingers. Her mother sat as if spell-bound ; 
Bhe recognized her child." 

Mrs. H. P. Blavatsky, a Eussian lady, resident at 124 East 
Sixteenth street, New York City, having seen in the newspa- 
pers a letter from Dr. George M. Beard, who had given less 
than two days to the investigation of the Eddy phenomena, 
declaring that the brothers are " frauds who cannot do even 
good trickery," generously replied to the attack by stating her 
own most conclusive experiences in a letter to the public, 
dated October 27th, 1874. She says : 

" I remained fourteen days at the Eddys'. In that short 
period of time I saw and recognized fully out of one hundred 
and nineteen apparition* &even spirits. I admit that I was 
the only one to recognize them, the rest of the audience not 
havinofbeen with me in my numerous travels throughout the 
East, but their various dresses and costumes were plainly 
seen and closely examined by all. 

"The first was a Georgian boy, dressed in the historical 
Caucasian attire. I recognized and questioned him in Geor- 
gian upon circumstances known only to myself. I was un- 
derstood and answered. Requested by me in his mother 
tongue (upon the whispered suggestion of Colonel Olcott) to 
play the * Lezguinka,' a Circassian dance, he did so immedi- 
ately upon the guitar. 

" Second — A little old man appears. He is dressed as Per- 
sian merchants generally are. His dress is perfect as a na- 
tional costume. Everything is in its right place, down to the 
'babouches ' that are off his feet, he stepping out in his stock- 
ings. He speaks his name in a loud whisper. It is * Hassan 
Aga,' an old man whom I and my family have known for 
twenty years at Tirlis. He says, half in Georgian and half in 
Persian, that he has got a ' big secret to tell me,' and comes at 
three different times, vainly seeking to finish his sentence. 

" Third— A. man of gigantic stature emerges forth, dressed 
in the picturesque attire of the warriors of Kurdistan. He 
does not speak, but bows in the Oriental fashion, and lifts up 
his spear ornamented with bright-colored feathers, shaking it 
in token of welcome. I recognize him immediately as Saffar 
Ali Bek, a young chief of a tribe of Kurds, who used to ac- 
company me in my trips around Ararat in Amenia on horse- 
back, and who on one occasion saved my life. More, he 
bends to the ground as though picking up a handful of mould 
and scattering it around, presses his hand to his bosom— a 
gesture familiar only to the tribes of the Kurdistan. 

" Fourth— A Circassian comes out. I can imagine myself 
at Tirlis, so perfect is his costume of ' nouker ' (a man who 
either runs before or behind one on horseback). This one 
speaks. More, he corrects his name, which I pronounced 
wrong on recognizing him, and when I repeat it he bows, 



MRS. EDDY APPEARS. 225 

smiling, and says in the purest guttural Tartar, which sounds 
so familiar to my ear, * Tchoch yachtchi ' (all right), and 
goes away. 

" Fifth— An old woman appears with a Russian headgear. 
She comes out and addresses me in Russian, calling me by an 
endearing term that she used in my childhood. I recognize 
an old servant of my family, a nurse of my sister. 

II Sixth — A large, powerful necjro next appears on the plat- 
form. His head is ornamented with a wonderful coiffure, 
something like horns wound about with white and gold. His 
looks are "familiar to me, but I do not at first recollect where 
I have seen him. Very soon he begins to make some viva- 
cious gestures, and his mimicry helps me to recognize him at 
a glance. It is a conjurer from Central Africa. He grins and 
disappears. 

" Seventh and last— A. large, gray-haired gentleman comes 
out attired in the conventional suit of black. The Russian 
decoration of St. Ann hangs suspended by a large red moire 
ribbon with two black stripes— a ribbon, as every Russian will 
know, belonging to said decoration. This ribbon is worn 
around his neck. I feel faint, for I think of recognizing my 
father. But the latter was a great deal taller. In my excite- 
ment I address him in English, and ask him : ' Are you my 
father ?' He shakes his head in the negative, and answers as 
plainly as any mortal man can speak, and in Russian, ' Xo ; I 
am your uncle.' The word ' diadia ' has been heard and re- 
membered by all the audience. It means ' uncle.' " 

■ Among the materialized spirit-forms that appear at Chit- 
tenden is that of the mother of the mediums. Of her appear- 
ance Col. Olcott says : 

II I know the full value of words, and I mean to say une- 
quivocally that a woman— a breathing, walking, palpable wo- 
man, as palpable as any other woman in the room, recognized 
not only by her sons and daughters, but also by neighbors 
present, as' Mrs. Zephaniah Eddy, deceased December 29th, 
1872— on the evening of October 2d, 1871, walked out of a 
cabinet where there was only one mortal, and where, under 
ascertained circumstances, only this one man could have been 
at the time, and spoke to me personally in audible voice ! And 
nineteen other persons saw her at the same time and heard 
her discourse." 

Mr. Leon Case, a lawyer of Hartford, Conn., of whose ex- 
periences at Chittenden I have already spoken, gives the fol- 
lowing description of the same apparition : 

"One night there came upon the platform, stepping vig- 
orously forth, a woman of apparently middle age. At once 
Mr. and Mrs. Brown (an Eddy) and Horatio exclaimed, 
'Mother!' and others present hailed her as 'Mrs. Eddy.' 
She was dressed in white skirt with dark colored sack, etc. 
She appeared very character-full. Her face was not very 
15 



226 WEIGHING A SPIRIT-FOKM. 

distinct to my eyes, save in profile, but it was to others. She 
bowed and answered her children's salutation pleasantly but 
rather curtly, as if she had something else on her mind, and 
raising her hands and slightly throwing back her head she 
proceeded to utter, in full, strong voice, one of the most co- 
gent, earnest and beautiful prayers I ever heard, addressed to 
'Father of my Spirit' — which words, and no other individual 
appellation, she repeated three or four times during the 
prayer, and then withdrew behind the veil, but quickly turn- 
ed around, so quickly that the clumsy veil had not had time to 
fairly fall into place behind her, came out, and posing herself 
like an accustomed platform speaker addressed us in a voice 
too loud to be in good taste before a limited audience, but evi- 
dently at much expense of will force. Her gesticulation was 
vigorous and appropriate. Her remarks related to the 'new 
life ' principally, and she said some things tenderly of her 
children— their present works, etc. I think she might have 
been heard distinctly throughout a common size country 
meeting-house. Her ^language was well chosen, indeed ele- 
gant, and without grammatical error — save one— the misuse 
of the verb Mays' for 'lies;' as 'lays along your path.' I 
was struck with the singularly forceful character and perti- 
nence of the utterances of this woman ; because she was the 
mother of that brood of illiterate ' mediums,' of whom I had 
heard so much, not having suspected that she possessed the 
graces she manifested." 

Mr. Case tells us that on one occasion Col. Olcott weighed 
the Indian spirit, Honto, on one of Fairbanks's platform 
scales. She was found to weigh eighty-eight pounds. She 
went behind the veil, reappeared, and was weighed again, 
this time weighing fifty-eight pounds. At another time she 
was found to weigh sixty-five pounds. Her bulk at these 
several weighings was apparently unchanged. Honto is 
five feet three inches in height, according to measures which 
Col. Olcott placed on either side of the closet door, and which 
all could distinctly see. William Eddy, the medium, is five 
feet nine and a half inches high, and weighs one hundred and 
seventy-nine pounds. 

A highly intelligent investigator, Mrs. A. A. Andrews, of 
Springfield, Mass., from whose account of her experiences at 
Dr. Slade's I have already quoted (Chapter III), has, at my 
request, kindly supplied the following description of what 
she saw at Chittenden, through the Eddys, during the au- 
tumn of 1874 : 

"During the five evenings that I was present at the se- 



INDIAN SPIKITS. 227 

ances, I saw a great number of materialized forms. Santum, 
an Indian chief, six feet and three inches tall, five or six 
inches taller than the medium, of fine proportions, and dress- 
ed in full national costume, presented himself; also the 
Indian girl Honto, graceful, lithe, and with that peculiar 
ease of motion which we see in savages whose muscles have 
never been fettered by an unnatural dress. She made her 
appearance every evening, walking rapidly, with noiseless 
steps, across the platform, and often drawing from the floor, 
the bare walls, or from the person of a gentleman or a lady 
called up from the circle to sit or stand upon the platform, 
large shawls of different colors and textures, which shawls 
she threw over the railing enclosing the platform, or held 
up, in .her outstretched hands, so that all might see them, 
and atfcerwards threw into the cabinet, lifting the curtain 
hung before it for this purpose. I also saw her give a lock 
of her long black hair to a gentleman who had lately come 
on from Philadelphia to witness the manifestations. On one 
occasion she took a pipe from a gentleman present, lighted 
it with a match, and smoked for some minutes with much 
apparent relish. 

" This form often dances with a lady (Mrs. Cleveland), who 
is a neighbor of the Eddys, and who told me that in taking 
hold of the arm of the spirit it had sometimes seemed to crush 
up in her fingers, it not being fully materialized. 

" The first evening that I was present I complained of the 
darkness of the room, saying that I could not see the spirits 
distinctly. The next night the spirit of an old woman, call- 
ing herself the 'Witch of the Mountains/ said, in a distinct 
voice, ' One of the ladies here complained last time that she 
could not see distinctly the faces of the spirits ; if she will 
come up to the platform she may see me, and take hold of my 
hair.' I went up, as desired, looked into her face, which 
was utterly unlike that of the medium, though pronounced 
and rather coarse in feature, and having that peculiar pallor 
so often observable in materialized forms. She raised one 
hand, and drawing out a lock of gray hair from under a ker- 



228 MAGICAL PHENOMENA. 

chief which partially covered her head, held it out to me. I 
took hold of it and pulled it, assuring myself that it grew up- 
on the scalp. It was harsh, dry and coarse, like that of one 
much exposed to the weather, and whose hair has not been 
taken care of. This old woman often spoke with us for ten 
or fifteen minutes at a time, alluding to her past life, and 
giving good moral advice. 

" On one evening she brought with her from the cabinet a 
slight twig or wand, which I at first took to be the shaft of 
a small arrow. As she seated herself upon a chair placed for 
her upon the platform, she drew this wand back and forth 
through her hands, talking to us meanwhile as usual. I ob- 
served that, as she handled it, it gradually increased in size 
until it became, after a few minutes, a stout staff upon which 
she leaned in rising from her seat, and in returning to the 
cabinet. 

' 'One of the female spirits, I think the one they called 
'Grandmother Eaton,' spoke painfully of the trials endured 
in the earth-life. I failed to catch all her words, but, while 
thus speaking, she opened her dress upon the breast, and, as 
if from within it, there arose fluctuating flames, reminding 
me of some Catholic pictures which one sees of Jesus 
where the heart is represented as burning with flame. It 
was to me a most weird and painfully thrilling sight, made 
more so by the dreary voice and sad words which were uttered 
at the time. 

" I saw the mother of Mr. Pritchard of Albany, or a spirit- 
form which he declared to be that of his mother, put her arms 
about his neck and embrace him ; I also heard her talk with 
him for some time in a low voice. This recognition of forms 
and faces goes to prove that there can be no deception, since 
strangers, going there unbelieving, could hardly be deceived 
in such a matter. The dress, little peculiar ways and modes 
of expression, the calling of sons and daughters in the circle 
by pet names, were spoken of by several as proving to them 
beyond a doubt the identity of those claiming to be relatives. 
I saw some six or eight spirit-forms that were recognized by 



PHENOMENA THROUGH MR. MOTT. 229 

persons in the circle who came there quite skeptical, and left 
convinced of the genuineness of the manifestations by this 
recognition of friends and relatives. 

"I was entirely convinced, before leaving Chittenden, that 
the Eddy brothers were honest as mediums, and indeed utterly 
incapable of such a fraud as their manifestations would be if 
not genuine. Such a deception would require great skill, in- 
deed a most remarkable talent, the possession of a theatrical 
wardrobe, and the aid of confederates, none of which, as any 
one staying a week in the house can satisfy himself, do these 
mediums have. They are simple and ignorant, their medium- 
ship having interfered sadly with their education, and their 
house is bare of all means and appliances needful for the pro- 
duction of artificial phenomena of this kind. Having remained 
only five days with them, I cannot give an adequate idea of 
the wonderful manifestations to be witnessed, both during 
the light and dark circles, in this old farm-house ; but I saw 
enough to feel assured that Col. Olcott's very interesting 
record of the phenomena, as published in the New York 
Graphic, is unexaggerated and every way reliable." 

Accounts of new mediums for the materialization phe- 
nomena reach me from many quarters as I draw this work to 
a conclusion.* Skeptics in regard to the manifestations 



"Among others I have received through Dr. Henry S. Chase of St. Louis 
a remarkable account, from the pen of the Rev. Isaac Kelso of Alton, III., 
of materia izations through Mr. Mott of Memphis, Tenn., and of inde- 
pendent spirit slate-writing through his daughter, three years old. One 
of the best authentic ited proof s of spirit identity I have ever met with is 
one given by Mr. Kelso in a letter to the St. Louis Democrat of Nov. 16th, 
18 4. The parties and facts are known to Dr. Chase, and vouched for in 
his letter to me. (See page 36 of this volume. ) 

At one of. Mr. Mott's seances, Oct. 25th, 1874, the apparition of a man of 
for y, wearing spectacles, called for a young lady present, Miss Kate 
Dwire of Canton, IP. She started forward, exclaimed t;, Tis my 
father !" grew agitated, and stopped, confessing she was afraid; at which 
the apparition Wept, and being asked why, said, "Oh ! it hurts me to 
think my own dear daughter is afraid of me,' 1 Miss D. then went up, 
and ta'ked wiih the spirit several minutes, but was greatly overcome. A 
white-robed female apparition rushed with open rrms toward Mr. Kelso, 
touched him, an 1 said she was his morher. A flash of lightning illumined 
the room, mnking her snowy garments glisten and her features g'ow. 
The recognition was not wholly satisfactory. The lightning seemed to 
weaken the materialization. As the form staggered backward it sank to 
the floor like a melting snow-drift, became a cloud of white vapor, and 
thus floated back into the cabinet. Mr. Kelso got a letter from his two 
sisters, wriiten by some or-cult power under test conditions on a clean 
slate, the medium being Essie Mott, three years old and ignorant even of 
the alphabet. The writing was good and correct, the communication 
* fc thrilling. ' ' Was it the child' s k w psychic force ' ' tha t did it all ? 



230 THE PHENOMENA PROVED. 

abound not only among the opponents of Spiritualism, but 
among Spiritualists themselves, and stories of fraud and im- 
posture are rife. I have endeavored to confine myself to nar- 
rations of those phenomena of the reality of which abundant 
confirmatory proof has been offered in spite of all opposition 
and dispute. 

Kef erring to the " badgering and tormenting of mediums, 
the nailing them to the floor, or sewing them up in sacks, 01 
binding their hands, feet, neck and limbs tightly with cords, in 
order to keep them from cheating," Thos. R. Hazard remarks : 

" It seems to me that enough has been conceded by spiritual 
mediums in the way of permitting investigators of tbe phe- 
nomena to prescribe conditions under which our spirit friends 
shall manilest their presence. It has been tried long enough 
to prove by its results that the gospel of Spiritualism, like 
that practiced and preached by Jesus of Nazareth, is not 
adapted to minds so full of conceit and fancied knowledge 
that there is not room for anything new to enter them. As a 
class, the most learned in the sciences and what is called di- 
vinity are the furthest off from what relates to spiritual 
truths than ail others. The most stolidly ignorant are in ad- 
vance of such, for, as the thoughtful Helvetius wisely says, 
* Ignorance is the middle point between true and false learn- 
ing. The ignorant man is as much above the falsely learned 
as he is below him of real science ; ' and again, * He who is 
falsely learned and has lost his reason when he thought to 
improve it, has purchased his stupidity at too dear a rate ever 
to renounce it.' Exactly so ; and this is just the ground that 
most of the learned (so-called) in the sciences, divinity and 
medicine occupy in our day. investigators from classes who 
have devoted years to studies conducted on a backward track 
from truth, and acquired imperfect, not to say false notions 
of what relates to the spiritual side of man, scorn to surren- 
der the scholastic theories they have imbibed at so great cost 
of time, money and labor to the dictation or unlettered me- 
diums, whether inspired by devil or angel. Jesus showed his 
great wisdom in wasting no time on such as these, for the 
simple reason that he knew it would be of no avail. ' Who- 
soever (said he) shall not receive the kingdom of God as a 
little child shall in no wise enter therein. ' " 

That there are frauds and self-delusions in Spiritualism 

every careful investigator knows ; but that there is a residuum 

of proved facts of the most wonderful kind, explicable by no 

theory of deception and deserving the attention of all earnest 

thinkers, is equally true. These facts can no longer be evaded 

or slighted by those who dare to face the truth however it 

may reverse their opinions. 



OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 231 

The Springfield (Mass.) Republican, of Oct. 30th, 1874, 
publishes a long account of the Eddy phenomena, and char- 
acterizes them as " the most mysterious facts that have been 
thus far recorded in the history of Spiritualism. " But while 
thus accepting the phenomena as proven, it concludes as fol- 
lows : 

" The information the apparitions vouchsafe is as valueless 
as all such information has been. One of them lectures 
vaguely, one improvises songs, one dances and weaves spirit- 
ual cloth for other ' spirits ' not so capable as herself, one 
merely nods and smiles. None of them have told us yet about 
the new life ; we are no wiser than o£ old. The manifesta- 
tions in the Eddy homestead, thus far, remarkable as they 
are, have simply added a deeper mystery to the strange thing 
called Spiritualism. We know it is not all imposture, we 
know it is not all illusion ; where and what the truth is, we 
yet wait to see." 

To all which the sufficient reply is simple enough : In the 
nature of things what fact could any spirit possibly communi- 
cate to be compared in magnitude with the Proof Palpable 
of its own existence f 

The wonderful fact of a future life is, at the present time, 
either practically ignored, or but faintly entertained, or else 
ridiculed and rejected by more than three- fourths of the 
people of Christendom ; an atheistic Science lifts its voice and 
proclaims annihilation as the only consistent creed for a sa- 
vant; the prayer even of believers is, "Help thou my unbe- 
lief !" and now, when spirits come and reveal themselves pal- 
pably to our senses, and claim recognition, and get it, and de- 
clare to us that death has not destroyed them, or changed 
their affections, the stupendous demonstration, instead of 
being welcomed with exultation, is met with the complaint, 
"None of them have told us yet about the new life ; we are 
no wiser than of old I" 

"No wiser?" Does the fact itself leave us actually no 
wiser ? Can any one who laments the loved one gone before, 
and longs foi a reunion, say that the information which the 
apparitions vouchsafe is " valueless "? Valueless ? And the 
information they vouchsafe is, that the departed still live ? 

Hear the testimony of one who has seen and heard and 



232 DESCRIPTIONS OF SPIRIT-LIFE. 

touched. I have already (page 121) related my own inter- 
view with the Rev. Mr. Pope, who went with his wife to see 
the manifestations at Moravia, N. Y. He writes to Dr. Crow- 
ell, Feb. 28th, 1873 : " We went there almost totally unbeliev- 
ing as to the possibility of seeing our spirit- friends, but our 
doubts and unbelief were soon swept away. We went there 
oppressed with a great sorrow ; we saw those we mourned, 
as alive from the dead ; we looked into their faces as in other 
days ; we received messages from their spirit lips ; we felt 
their celestial hands touching us, and we went away sorrow- 
less, our hearts singing for joy. All things now seem 
changed ; the world wears a brighter aspect ; and I tell people 
I am one of the happiest men on earth. I always believed 
and preached that the departed are alive, and near us, but be- 
lieving and seeing are widely different tlmigs, and I thank God 
for the ocular demonstration, and for the joy it gives." 

It is not quite correct to say that spirits tell us nothing 
" about the new life." Their accounts of it are as various as 
their characters. As the objective environments of a spirit 
are supposed to correspond with his moral and mental state, 
it is quite consistent that the descriptions of their " new life " 
by these revenants should differ greatly. 

It is a question, moreover, whether it would not require the 
development of a new sense in ourselves before we could fully 
comprehend the descriptions we might get of life in the spirit- 
world. Even if we got something new— some truthful and 
extraordinary account of the "new life"— what would it 
amount to unless we had the faculty of accepting the truth 
when it was offered, and appreciating it accordingly ? 

We are told that through Spiritualism " we are no wiser 
than of old." Truly, that depends. A mere fact adds noth- 
ing to our wisdom until the fact is accepted for what it is 
worth. All the information which the highest archangel 
could impart in regard to the "new life" would profit us 
nothing unless there were the proper conditions of mind and 
heart, or the opening of a latent sense, for its reception. 

Spirits and seers, ancient and modern, have given full and 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 233 

various descriptions of the "new life"; descriptions which 
may be true, false, or mixed ; but obviously they are nothing 
to us until we have the data and the faculties for testing theii 
accuracy. Mrs. A. A. Andrews says she has seen autograph 
letters, enough to fill a volume, written by spirits, under 
strictest test conditions, upon paper untouched by the me- 
dium, and containing descriptions of daily life in the other 
world, which gave as vivid a conception of existence there as 
it seems possible for those still in the flesh to form. 

To attempt to throw discredit on the significance of spirit 
materializations simply because something new, beyond the 
amazing fact itself, is not added, is obviously unwise. l£ 
ourselves, and not in the fact, must the requisite condition be 
presented before anything new in regard to the future life 
can enter our minds. A mere assertion takes no root in an 
unreceptive understanding. 

Suppose that a true account of the occupations in spirit-life 
of Plato, Shakspeare or Columbus were written out and pub- 
lished : what impression would it make unless we had been 
prepared, by thought, sympathy and prescience, to recognize 
the verisimilitude of the description ? 

The objection, therefore, that spirits "tell us nothing about 
the new life," does not hold ; they tell us a good deal, but 
what they tell us is valueless indeed so long as we are unqual- 
ified to form an opinion of its truth. The prophecies of Cas- 
sandra were none the less true because they were not be- 
lieved. 

As for the objection, so often raised, " Why do not spirits 
forewarn us of many accidents, public or private, which 
their premonitions might avert?" the Spiritualist is not 
bound to give any other reply than this : "I do not know." 
Any person who will take the trouble to investigate may 
learn that, in many individual cases, premonitions are given, 
and calamities are averted by spirit interposition. Why this* 
is not done oftener, or in a manner to impress the public at 
large more forcibly, is a matter on which we may speculate 
but cannot speak with confidence. 



234 THE PEOOF PALPABLE. 

Objections may be multiplied, but they cannot invalidate 
the one great fact which must suffice. Proofs palpable, giv- 
en in the reappearance, in temporarily materialized forms, 
of deceased persons, are now so numerous and so fully at- 
tested, that no incredulity or opposition can impair their 
force. The phenomena are admitted by all who have quali- 
fied themselves by patient and unprejudiced investigation to 
pronounce an opinion. 

Since the phenomena of Modern Spiritualism cannot be ex- 
plained by known natural laws, and seem frequently to occur 
in violation of those laws, " there remain only for their ex- 
planation either the magic forces of the mediums, or of for- 
eign spirits.' ' Such, as I learn from Dr. Bloede, is the con- 
clusion of Dr. Maximilian Perty, Professor of Natural Science 
at the University at Berne, Switzerland, author of " The Mys- 
tical Phenomena of Human Nature;" who further admits 
that there are many undeniable facts which can hardly or 
not at all be explained by the forces of a medium or his sur- 
roundings, and must be attributed to spiritual beings. 

Thus to the spiritual theory all persevering investigators 
are brought at last, sooner or later, according to the extent 
and thoroughness of their experiences and studies. To the 
proofs mental and supersensual we have now added the proof 
palpable of immortality ; and the result of our examination 
is that no theory, other than the spiritual, is ample enough 
to include all the facts, and to offer for them a rational solu- 
tion. 



THE END. 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



JEsop, Spirit of, 151. 

Affections, The, 199, 212. 

Agassiz, 143. 

Aime-Martin, 168. 

Andrews, Mrs. A. A., 40, 45, 118,226. 

Andrews, Mrs. Mary, 32-40. 

Animals, Immortality of, 143, 163. 

Apollonius, 163. 

Apparitions, 12, 22, 24, 59, 73, 139. 

Arffvll, Duke of, 163. 

Aristotle, 124, 164. 

Aryan belief, 161. 

Atheism, 89, 159, 167,168, 176,184,187. 

Atomism, 89, 160. 

Auerbaeh, 212. 

Augustine, St., 74, 75, 144. 

Aurignac, Cave of, 27. 

Bacon, John, 133. 

Ba^on, Lord, lis, 149, 150, 186. 

Bain, Alex.. 72,83. 

Barnard, H.,4l. 

Barnes, Albert, 29. 

Bastian and Tavlor, 56. 

Baxter. Richard, 144, 203. 

Beattie, John, 80, 89. 

Belshazzar, 12. 

Bertrand, 213. 

Bible Spirits, 73. 

Bigelow, L. A., 36. 

Billot, 213. 

Blackburn, C, 52, 64, 99. 

Blavatskv, Mrs., 224. 

Bloede, Dr., 210, 234. 

Blyton, T., 52. 

Bonaparte, Hortense, 27. 

Bonnet, Charles, 142, 143. 

Brittan's Quarterly, 160. 

Broussais, 45. 

Broun, John, 38. 

Bruno, G., t9. 150, 189. 

Buchanan, J. R., 93. 

Buchner. Dr., 27, 29, 157, 174, 178. 

Buckle, Thos., 211. 

Busruet, 81. 

Burnouf, 160, 165. 

Burns, Jas., 48. 

Burns, Mrs. Jas., 48. 

Cabanis, 138, 139. 
Caird, Rev. J., 180. 



Calvin, 144. 

Cambridge Professors, 76, 125. 

Camisard Prophets, 145. 

Caro, E., 24, 180. 

Carpenter, W. B., 164, 174, 188, 191« 

Case, Leon, 211, 225, 226. 

Catholic AYorld, 150, 164. 

Causation, 174, 179. 

Chambers, R., 123. 

Chaseray, 13S. 

Chavee, 22. 

Chemistry, 161. 

Chevreul," 174. 

Child, Dr. H., 43, 78, 114, 116, 229. 

Chinnery, Mr., 48. 

Chittenden, Vt., 127. 

Christ's resurrection, 24. 

Christianity, 188. 

Christian Fathers, 74, 86, 139,205. 

Christlieb, 150, 176, 193. 

Cicero, 73, '24, 144. 

Clairvoyance, 11, 24, 85, 91, 92, 119, 

149, 154, 173, 174. 
Clement, 86, 140. 
Cleveland, Mrs., 130. 
Colburn, Z., 10, 91. 
Colby, L., 221. 

Coleman, B., 9, 56, 64, 71, 102, 220. 
Coleridge, 75, 139, 158. 
Comte, 179. 
Conant, Mrs., 86. 

Consciousness, Double, 154, 165, 192. 
Cook, Miss, 9, 10, 47-71, 94-110. 
Copernican System, 188. 
Cousin, 197. 

Cox, Sergeant, 48, 69, 105, 149. 
Creatio ex NihUo, 150, 166, 189, 193. 
Creed, 208. 
Crookes, Wm., 9, 60, 64-68, 81, 99- 

109, 154, 159. 
Crosbv, A. B., 111. 
Crowell, Dr., 222,231. 
Cudworth, 140. 
Cut bono, 214. 
Cut Places made whole, 79, 103, 106, 

154. 

Darwinism, 156. 
Daumer, Prof., 22. 
Davenport Brothers, 13, 47. 
Davies, Dr., 80. 



236 



INDEX. 



Davis, A. J., 86, 133, 141. 
Death. 114, 163. 
Deleuze, 213. 
Descartes, 75, 164, 169. 
Design, 182, 183. 
D'Holbach. 167. 
D'Huniu, 213. 
Dialectical Society, 68, 125. 
Pi lie, Israel, 160. 
Disappearances, 79, 112, 115, 151. 
Ditson, G. L., 59, 120, 132. 
Doppelganger, 64, 117, 145. 
Douglas, Miss, 102. 
Dryden, John, 218. 
Dualism, 75, 118, 141. 
Dumas, Chemist, 155. 
Dunphv, H. M., 64, 93. 
Dupotet, 214. 

Earth not dead, 163. 

Ecstasy, 192. 

Eddy Family, 125-134, 211, 223-229. 

Edmonds, J. VT., 57, 87. 

Electrical Test, 100. 

Elliotson, Dr.. 139. 

Emerson, R. W., 25, 26, 28. 

Erigena, J. Scotus, 188. 

Everitt, Thos., 79. 

Evil, Nature of, 195, 204, 205. 

Faraday, 166. 
Favre, Leon, 23. 
Ferrier, J. F., 92, 157. 
Feuerbach, 27, 29. 
Fichte, J. G., 108, 175,200. 
Fichte, J. H., 125, 146. 
Fire-test, 82. 
First Causes, 94. 
Flammarion, 125. 
Force, Intelligent, 88. 
Foster, Charles, 120. 
Fox, Kate, 10, 13, 14, 69, 214. 
Franklin, Dr., 17. 
Fraud, Suspicion of, 38. 
Froshammer, 184. 

Gasparin, Count, 149. 

Geology, 176. 

Georact, Dr., 139. 

Glanville, Rev. J., 14. 

God, Nature of, 85, 94, 110, 136, 151, 

159, 165, 168-197. 
Gravitation, 88, 89. 
Gray, Dr. J. F„ 13, 17, 20, 56, 102, 134. 
Gregory of Nyssa, 74. 
Guldenstubbe, 217. 
Gully, J. M., 9, 54, 99, 100. 
Gunning, Prof., 221. 
Guppy, Mrs., 47, 79,80. 
Gurney, Mr., 221, 222. 

Haeckel, 29, 182. 
Hale, D. H ,42. 
Hall, S. C, 82. 
Hallain, 75. 



Hamilton, Sir W., 78, 196. 

Hardy. Mrs. Mary, 56. 

Hare, Prof., 68, 125, 139. 

Harris, T. L., 149. 

Harrison, W. H., 49, 51, 80, S2, 94- 

99, 103, 104, 151. 
Hartlev, 85. 
Hartmann, 184, 185. 
Harvard University, 125. 
Hay den, Mrs., 136. 
Hay ward, Dr. A. S., 40. 
Hayward, John, 37. 
Hazard, T. H., 32-35, 45. 
Heirel, 90, 193. 
Hellfeld, Counsellor, 145. 
Helmholtz, 78. 
Hemsterhuis, 175. 
Heme, medium, 47, 49, 80. 
Herschel, Sir J., 163. 
Hesiod, 137. 
Hitchman, W., 90, 99. 
Hollis, Mrs. E. J., 41. 
Holmes, Mr. and 'Mrs., 43, 78, 111, 

114, 229. 
Home, D. D., 13, 56, 62, 69, 80, 82, 

116, 124. 
Homer, 137, 146. 

Honto, a spirit, 131, 132, 223, 226. 
Hooker, Dr., 207. 
Hooker. Richard, 196. 
Ho witt, Win., 220. 
Hudson, photographer, 220. 
Humboldt, Alex., 128, 210. 
Humboldt, Wm., 210. 
Hunt, Rev. J., 189. 
Huxley, Prof., 125, 174, 178, 191. 
Hydesville Phenomena, 13, 14, 213. 

Idea as Force, 155. 
Idealism, 77, 193. 
Identity, 44, 45, 113, 116. 
Immateriality, 73. 
Immort.lity, 25-30, 110, 209-212. 
Indian Spirits, 131. 
Infinite and finite, 169. 
Irvine, Clarke, 41, 119. 
Isidore, 32. 

Jackson, J. W., 190. 

Jacobi, 175. 

Janet, Paul, 159. 

Jencken, H. D., 15, 16. (See Fox.) 

Jencken, his infant son, 16, 145. 

Jevons, 88. 

Job on Spirits, 73. 

Jobson, Mary, 144. 

Johnson, Rev. S., 28. 

Jones, S. S., 123. 

Joubert, 15u. 

Kant, 25, 28, 78, 83, 210. 
Kardec, 86, 147, 150, 151, 153, 155. 
Katie King, 43, 44, 47, 50-67, 82, 94- 

110. 
Katie King photographed, 107, 108. 



INDEX. 



237 



Katie King in Philadelphia, 78, 111, 

116, 230. 
Kelso, Rev. Isaac, 36, 229. 
Kepler, 144. 
Kerner, Justinus, 214. 
King, John, 45, 47. 
Kirkup, Baron, 81, 82. 
Kislingbury, Miss, 96. 
Knot-tying by Spirits, 145. 
Knox, John, 144. 
Koons, Jonathan, 13, 47. 

Labonlaye, E., 212. 

Lavater, 141. 

Law, William, 189. 

Le Conte, Prof., 178. 

Lee, Bishop, 173. 

Leibnitz, 83,89, 143, 164. 

Lei fch i Id, 14G. 

Lenzberg, Max, 223. 

Letter borne by Spirits, 81. 

Levitations, 73, 80, 82, 115. 

Lewes, G. H., 91, 172, 173. 

Leymnrie, M., 220. 

Life, Principle of, 102, 164. 

Light, a Trinity, 193. 

Livermore, C. F., 13, 16-21, 102,221. 

Locke, John, 24, 151, 156, 158, 217. 

Lord, Mrs. Maud, 5(5. 

Luther, 144. 

Luxmoore, J. C, 53, 60-62, 79, 98, 99. 

Lyell, Sir Charles, 27. 

M. A. (OxonJ, 146, 220. 

McCosh, 30. 

Mansell, 187. 

Marryat, Capt., 103. 

Martineau, J., 217. 

Materialism, 6, 9, 77, 86, 157, 159, 

177-180. 
Materialization, 16-21, 45, 48, 65, 83, 

133, 205, 233. 
Matter, Grades of, 133. 

Mystery of, 78, 83. 

Passage through, 79, 80, 103, 
153. 

Power over, 113, 153, 155. 

Tyndall on, 157-159. 
May, Rev. Jos., 26. 
Mediums, Fallible, 135, 149. 
Sensations of, 11. 
Melancthon, 144. 
Memory, 154. 
Mesmer, Anton, 213. 
Mesmeric Incident, 189, 204. 
Mill, J. S.,83, 111, 172, 201. 
Milton, 8?, 151, 199. 
Mind and Matter, 92, 159. 
Moleschott, 27, 29, 156, 157. 
Morals of Spiritualism, 198, 201. 
Moravia, Phenomena, 27,29, 156,157. 
Morgan, Annie, 104, 106. 
Morgan, Prof. De, 124. 
Moses, 73. 
Mott, Mr., medium, 229. 



Mozart, 10, 191. 
Mumler, 220, 221. 
Murphy, J. J., 176. 

Naturalism, 193. 

Nature, 151, 182, 190, 192, 211. 

Nervous Ether, 146. 

Newman, F. W., 210. 

New Testament, 140. 

Newton, 144, 150. 

Nichol, Miss. (See Guppy.) 

Nichols, J. R., 68. 

Noyes, T. H., 11. 

Oberlin, 144. 

Odic Force, 149. 

Oersted, 166. 

Olcott, H. S., 126, 133, 223, 225, 226, 

229. 
Old Testament, 73. 
Organicism, 74. 
Origen, 86, 140, 205. 
Owen, R. D., 14, 43, 78, 114, 116, 230. 

Packard, Mrs. C, 38, 39. 

Paley, 122. 

Pantheism, 72, 150, 166, 187, 189, 207. 

Papillon, F., 89, 16J, 165. 

Parker, T., 34. 

Parsons, Theoph., 84, 151. 

Pascal, 86. 

Paul, St., 25, 91, 140. 

Perisprit, 150. 

Personal, 84, 123, 173, 191, 203, 213. 

Perty, Max, 234. 

Phenomena, 16-21, 33, 83, 88, 111, 

114, 124, 155. 
Phosphorus, 157. 
Photography, Spirit, 53-56, 80-89, 

97-99, 107, 108, 220. 
Physiology, 162. 
Picton, J. A., 166, 175, 185, 186. 
Planchette, by Epes Sargent, 110, 

144, 221. 
Plato, 78, 86, 89, 124, 139, 164. 
Plimpton, F. B., 43. 
Plotinus, 78, 89. 
Plutarch, 116, 124, 149. 
Polytheism, 168. 
Pope, Rev. R. S., 121, 231. 
Pope, The, 164. 
Porter, Noah, 163. 
Previsions, 15, 38, 85, 119, 149, 173. 
Priestley, 159. 
Pritchard, E. V., 132, 228. 
Psychic Force, 38, 70, 90, 118, 142, 

149, 163, 165. 
Puysegur, 213. 

Rane, Dr. C, 112. 
Realism, 77. 
Reason, Unity of, 165. 
Religion, 200. 
Remusat, De, 83. 
Resurrection of body, 140. 



238 



INDEX. 



Richardson, B. W., 146. 
Robertson, Rev. F. W., 44. 
Rogers, Dr. E. C, 149. 
Ross-Church, Mrs., 22, 64, 103-106, 

130. 
Russell, H. E., 70. 

Sadducees, 25. 
Safford, Prof., 10. 
Saigey, Emile, 160. 
Saint Denis, 168. 

St. Martin, 191. 

St. Thomas, 205. 

Satan, 45, 202, 217. 

Schelling, 158, 192, 193. 

Schiller, 25, 209. 

Schopenhauer, 1S4, 185. 

Seguin, 213. 

Seneca, 199. 

Senses, Fallibility of the, 84, 85. 

Sensitives, or Mediums, 10. 

Sexton, Dr. Geo., 60. 

Shakspeare, 95. 

Shorter, Thomas, 134. 

Showers, Miss, 79. 

Sin, 204, 205. 

Skepticism, 87, 114, 116, 178. 

Slade, Dr. H., 40, 119, 222, 226. 

Smith, Rev. J. E., 136. 

Smith, Sir J. E., 142. 

Socrates, 30, 202. 

Somnambulism, 85, 165, 191, 203, 204, 

213. 
Soul, The, 73, 74, 139, 164-168, 203. 
Space and Time, 83. 
Spencer, Herbert, 72, 77, 78, 83, 140, 

172, 173. 
Spinoza, 75-77, 205, 210. 
Spirit and Matter, 72-84, 92-94. 
Spirit body, 22-24, 74-91, 110, 136- 
154, 164, 198. 
flowers, 17, 18, 79, 82. 
garments, 17, 18, 49, 52, 58, 

79, 102, 112, 132. 
hands. 18, 73, 119. 151. 
lights, 82. 

music, 80, 82, 97, 120. 
photographs, 53-56, 80-89, 97- 

99, 107, 108, 220. 
speech, 37, 47, 54, 62, 73, 96, 

112, 118, 132. 
writing, 17, 40, 58, 60. 61, 73, 
79, 83, 96, 103, 106. 
Spirits, disappearance of, 115. 
fallibility of, 118, 134. 
try them, 46. 
seizure of, 64. 
visibility of, 153. 
Spiritualism a science, 166. 

morals of, 198-209. 
not atheistic, 178. 
objections to, 214-217. 



Spiritualism, relations to theism, 
167. 
teaches unity, 167. 
Spiritualists denounced, 92, 124. 
Springfield (Mass.) Republican, 230. 
Staats, Mrs., 34. 
Stahl, G. E., 165. 
Stirling, J. H., 156. 
Stock, St. Geo., 122, 212, 219. 
Stoics, The, 25. 

Strauss, D. F., 27, 179, 184, 211. 
Substance defined, 71, 151. 
Supreme Question, 180. 
Swedenborg, 10, 83, 87 ', 135, 136, 149, 
151, 192, 193. 

Taine, H., 27. 

Tapp, G. H., 65, 104. 

Tatian, 86. 

Taylor, Isaac, 140. 

Tennyson quoted, 185, 202. 

Tertullian, 73, 75. 

Theism, 72, 150, 157, 166, 187. 

Thought and Matter, 156. 

Townshend, Rev. C. H., 204. 

Trance, State of, 100, 118. 

Trinity, human and divine, 86, 191, 

192-196, 205, 206. 
Tuttle, Hudson, 219. 
Tylor, E. B., 27, 74, 145. 
Tyndall, Prof., 124, 125, 157, 174. 

Ulysses, 145. 
Unbelief, 29, 210, 211, 231. 
Unity of Forces, 154, 160-167. 
Universe, 151, 163, 197. 

Varley, C. F., 9, 100, 125, 133. 

Veda, The, 161. 

Vera, A., 155, 156, 193. 

Virgil, 73. 

Vogt, Carl, 27, 29, 13S, 184. 

Volckman, Mr., 64. 

Voysey, Rev. Mr., 218. 

Wallace, A. R., 10, 69, 79, 80, 87 

125, 159, 198, 220. 
Warburton, 73. 
Ward, Rosanna C, 30. 
Wason, J., 16. 
Watson, Rev. S., 121. 
Webb, Mrs. J. L., 56, 123. 
Webster, Mrs. H. B., 116. 
Wesley Family, 14, 144. 
Wetherbee, John, 111. 
Wilkinson. W. M., 144J 
Williams, Chas. E., 47, '48, 71, 80. 
Witchcraft, 124, 125. 
Wittgenstein, Prince, 48, 68. 
Wolfe, N. B., 41. 
Wood, Emma A., 153. 




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